AIADMK's ally in Assembly polls, PMK to go it alone in rural civic polls

The decision to contest alone was taken unanimously following a virtual meeting of party functionaries held Tuesday evening, PMK president G K Mani said in a statement.

In the meeting presided by party founder-leader S Ramadoss and the party's youth wing chief Anbumani Ramadoss, office-bearers expressed a view that the party should go it alone considering growth prospects, he added.

''Based on this, a decision was taken unanimously to contest polls all alone for rural local bodies in nine districts.'' On September 13, the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission announced that polls for rural local bodies would be held on October 6 and 9 in the nine reconstituted districts. The nine districts are Kanchipuram, Chengalpattu, Villupuram, Kallakurichi, Vellore, Ranipet, Tirupathur, Tirunelveli and Tenkasi.

Pending delimitation of territorial wards in these districts following reconstitution of districts, rural local body polls were not conducted in such regions while the same was held in 27 other districts of Tamil Nadu in December 2019.

During the previous AIADMK regime, Chegalpattu was carved out of Kanchipuram and Vellore was trifurcated, resulting in two new districts of Ranipet and Tirupathur. Kallakurichi and Tenkasi became two new districts, and these were split from Villupuram and Tirunelveli districts respectively.