TN: DMDK, PMK to fight civic polls alone

CHENNAI: Each to its own—that is going to be the norm when the local body elections take place next month. Indicating that they are likely to contest the forthcoming elections to the local bodies on their own strength, the main opposition party, DMDK, and the PMK on Friday announ­ced their nominees for several corporations, municipalities and town panchayats. While the CPI will decide its course of action on September 24 at its State Council meeting, the CPI-M will be taking a decision in a day or two. Significantly, the CPM’s Kanyakumari district unit has announced that the party would contest from three municipalities in the district.Though the DMDK and PMK have not made formal announcements on going it alone, the release of the nominees’ list is a sufficient hint. The DMDK—being left with no other option after its alliance partner, AIADMK, announced their set of candidates—declared its nominees for nine municipal corporati­ons, except Tiruchy, and town panchyats in eight districts—Cuddalore, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Kanchee­puram, Tiruvannamalai, Villupuram, Tiruvallur and Vellore.The nine Mayoral candidates announced by DMDK founder Vijaykanth are: Sath­yavani Suresh Babu (Vellore), N S Sivakumar (Erode), M Dinesh Kumar (Tirupur), S Rajeswari (Tuticorin), K Vel­murugan (Chennai), K Kaviarasu (Madurai), R Pandiyan (Coimbatore), A R Elangovan (Salem) and A Seethalakshmi (Tirunelveli). N S Sivakumar is the secretary of the party’s Erode South district unit while N Dinesh Kumar is the secretary of the Tirupur North district unit. K Kaviarasu is the presidium chairman of the party’s urban district unit while R Pandiyan is the secretary of Coimbatore North district unit and A R Elangovan is the joint secretary of the DMDK.