AIADMK sweeps Tamil Nadu civic polls
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Six months after it won the assembly elections, the AIADMK on Friday swept the two-phased Tamil Nadu civic polls.
The party won five of the 10 mayoral posts while it was leading with a comfortable margin in the other five.
With this, 10 cities in the state - Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem, Erode, Tiruppur, Tirunelvelli, Tiruchirapalli, Tuticorin and Vellore - would have AIADMK mayors.
The party was also set to win a majority of the chiefs of municipalities and town panchayats as well as the members of those bodies.
Counting of votes cast in the two-phased polls held on Oct 17 and Oct 19 began at 822 places across the state Friday morning.
The AIADMK shot into the lead early in a majority of the places and continued to extend its lead over rivals like the DMK, DMDK and PMK.
The elections saw all the major political parties in the state -- AIADMK, DMK and Congress -- contesting alone while the DMDK fought with the support of two Communist parties.
The DMDK, founded by actor-turned-politician A. Vijayakant, had fought the assembly elections with the AIADMK and won 29 seats to become the second largest party in the 234 member assembly.
This time, however, things were different. Though Vijayakant and his wife campaigned across the state, the party fared poorly. The polls will elect around 112,000 representatives.
On Thursday, the AIADMK had won the by-poll held in Tiruchirapalli West assembly constituency.
Reacting to AIADMK's landslide victory in the civic polls, DMK president and former chief minister M. Karunanidhi accused the State Election Commission (SEC) of partiality. He also said the ruling party winning the local body polls was nothing new.
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