Chennai, March 5 Tamil Nadu School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, who is closely associated with Chief Minister M.K Stalin's family, has suffered a major setback after AIADMK wrested the Manapparai municipality from the DMK in Tiruchi district.
Manapparai has been a DMK bastion for decades and the AIADMK was never able to win it.
Despite election reversals across the state, this has brought cheer to the AIADMK camp with the party-state leadership congratulating its leaders of Manapparai and Tiruchi districts for having wrested the municipality from the DMK clutches.
In the urban local body elections held on February 19, AIADMK and DMK won 11 seats each out of the 27 wards in Manapparai municipality. Five seats were won by the independent candidates and DMK had sought the support of the independents. However, after counting, the DMK was in for a big shock as the AIADMK candidate Sudha received 15 votes as against the DMK candidate Geetha Michael Raj who could garner only 12 votes.
DMK leader Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi will have to give a lot of answering to the party-state leadership, including the Chief Minister, as this has been a prestigious municipality for the DMK touted often as its bastion.
Sources in the DMK told that the state education minister had failed to read the pulse of the independents and it was a clear miscalculation on his part to prevent the AIADMK from wresting the chairman post even after the number of seats won by both the parties remained same at 11.
Tamil Nadu Water Resources Minister and senior leader of the DMK, S. Duraimuurgan who is in charge of the organisation while speaking to said: "These are early days. I have not studied the matter but will take stringent action if party functionaries have erred in making sure that the party retains the administration of the Manapparai municipality. Waiting for feedback from ground-level cadres and party functionaries."
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor