Dalit woman mayor: A tough test for Dravidian giants

The DMK and AIADMK have a herculean task picking a scheduled caste women candidate for mayorship.

The ruling DMK seems to be doing well in comparison with the AIADMK in shortlisting a few probable candidates. At least four names from the ruling party are in the race. If information trickling out of Anna Arivalyam are something to go by, daughter of a sitting Rajya Sabha MP cum senior party functionary and daughter of former MLA/student’s wing secretary has been doing rounds during the last fortnight.

A granddaughter of a former vice chancellor of Tamil University was also in contention till a while ago. However, the hot favorite to secure Chennai mayor ‘ticket’ in the ruling DMK is a spouse of a former union secretary. DMK sources with knowledge of the developments disclosed that the wife of ‘Puzhal’ Narayanan is the frontrunner in the DMK to secure the MLA ticket now.

Reliable DMK sources disclosed that Mrs Narayanan has almost finalised, unless the DMK wants to make a nick of time change. The opposition AIADMK on the other hand is yet to shortlist its probable mayor candidate for Chennai.

“Since the poll is an indirect election, we want to hold till the results are out. At present the party is focussed on seat sharing with the BJP and other smaller parties, ” said an informed AIADMK senior.

Similar is the case with Avadi and Tambaram municipal corporations reserved for women.

However, the party has identified few women aspirants for the post of mayor in Coimbatore, Pollachi, Erode and Nammakkal where the party is stronger than the rival DMK. AIADMK leader Edappadi K Palaniswami, former ministers SP Velumani and P Thangamani have almost shortlisted the probable mayoral candidates if the party sails through the majority, the source said.