[1]Ending its brief honeymoon with the ruling AIADMK, actor Vijayakanth’s DMDK on Friday decided to contest the local body elections on its own and announced mayoral candidates for nine corporations and several municipalities.
The local body elections in the state are all set to witness a multi-cornered contest with major political parties AIADMK, DMK, DMDK, MDMK, Congress and PMK deciding to go it alone.
DMDK chief Vijayakanth fielded his party’s labour wing leader K. Velmu-rugan as mayoral candidate for Chennai corporation, pitting him against sitting Mayor and DMK’s M. Subramanian and AIADMK veteran Saidai S. Duraisamy.
The PMK on Friday fielded former Union minister of state for Railways A.K. Moorthy for Chennai mayorship. MDMK general secretary Vaiko announced party senior N. Manoharan for the city mayor post.
In a statement, Vijayakanth also announced candidates for the corporations of Madurai, Coimbat-ore, Salem, Tuticorin, Tirunelveli, Vellore, Erode and Tirupur. DMDK Madurai presidium chairman Kaviarasu will contest from Madurai. Coimbatore North party secretary Pandian will be contesting from Coimbatore and party dep-uty secretary Elangovan from Salem and Seethalak-shmi from Tirunelveli.
The party has fielded Sathyavani Sureshbabu in Vellore, Erode South secretary Sivakumar will contest from Erode, Dinesh Kumar from Tirupur and Rajeshwari from Tuticorin. He also named three women as mayoral candidates of the total nine announced on Friday.
“It will be a healthy competition to ascertain the strength of each party. In a way it is good to a certain extent,” DMDK presidium chairperson Panruti S. Ramachandran told DC.
The AIADMK had formed a rainbow coalition for the April 13 polls comprising DMDK and two Left parties besides other small parties and handed down a heavy defeat to the rival DMK.
However, by-election for Tiruchy West constituency may end up as a straight contest between the ruling AIADMK and its archrival DMK.
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