Choose your Mayor from 32 wannabe list

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai on October 11, 2011:

Source:http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/Choose-your-Mayor-from-32-wannabe-list/322012.html

CHENNAI: With 32 candidates vying for the prestigious seat of Mayor in Chennai Corporation, this civic election is going to be a tightly-fought contest between the candidates representing all main political parties in Tamil Nadu.

When the direct election was held for the Mayor in 1996, there were only eight contestants and the DMK’s youth wing leader M K Stalin won the race by a margin of over four lakh votes over the Janata Party’s nominee V S Chandralekha. With Stalin’s tenure as Mayor brought to the light the post’s political importance, the 2001 direct election saw a surge in number of contestants.

While 20 candidates tried their luck in 2001, Stalin once again emerged victorious by defeating his nearest rival N Balaganga of the AIADMK.

With the AIADMK government deciding to introduce the direct election system (after a 10-year break) for Mayor posts, 32 candidates are now in the fray.

Of the 32 wannabe Mayors, six contestants from the main political parties in the state are Saidai S Duraisamy (AIADMK), M Subramanian (DMK), A K Moorthy (PMK), Saidai P Ravi (Congress), G Velmurugan (DMDK) and N Manoharan (MDMK). Besides them, contestants like IIM graduate Sarathbabu and R Mohanraj, who is known for contesting in every election, are the known faces among independent candidates.

BJP is the only big party which is not in race as its candidate’s nomination papers were rejected during scrutiny due to discrepancies.

Besides, the civic body election for Chennai Corporation this month is going to be a herculean task for the State Election Commission as the city has expanded from 174 sqkm to 426 sqkm and number of wards have been increased from 155 to 200, comprising over 44 lakh voters.
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PROMINENT CANDIDATES:

Name	Party	Symbol	Advantage
Saidai S Duraisamy	AIADMK	Two leaves	Ruling party candidate and well-known public face, popular among youth voters
M Subramanian	DMK	Rising Sun	Banks on performance as Mayor and a well-known public face
A K Moorthy	PMK	Mango	Well-known public face and administrator, former MoS for Railways
G Velmurugan	DMDK	Drum	Backing of Left parties
Saidai P Ravi	Congress	Hand	Banks on traditional Congress votes
N Manoharan	MDMK	Top	Option for general and neutral voters

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OTHER CANDIDATES:

E Sarath Babu – IIM Graduate and known among youths

R Mohan Raj - Ex-cop and known for contesting in all elections

Paramesh Babu - Bahujan Samaj Party

S Ameer Hamza –Social Democratic Party of India

P Adul Farooq

G Abdul Hameed

M Arul

Arundathi Ramachandran

A Anantharaman

M Raja

M Peer Raja

S Kandasamy

M Kalaiarasan

K S Gopi

Thuraimugam Chandran

T Dasaprakash

K Devadas

S Jayaraj

D Jagadeeswaran

K Pratheev

A M Feroz Khan

E Renu Kumar

R Lingesan

P Wilson

E Viswanathan

P Hameed Hussain

Previous direct elections in 1996 and 2001:

1996

Date of Election - Oct 11, 1996 (Phase II)

Total candidates contested è 8

Votes polled – 13, 90913

Valid Votes – 13, 45,059

Total votes percentage (%)  51%

DMK - MK. Stalin – 8,24,526

Janta Party – VS Chandralekha – 3, 87,401

MDMK – SS Chandran- 86,135

2001

Date of Elections: Oct 16 (Phase I) & Oct 18, 2011 (Phase II)

Total candidates contested è 20

Votes polled – 13, 25,742

Valid Votes – 12, 83,428

Total votes percentage (%)  34.49%

DMK – MK Stalin – 5,68,841

AIADMK – Balaganga – 5,63,438

Congress – H Vasanthakumar – 1,026,96

(Statistics provided by Express Research Team)