What prompted the government to introduce a Bill abolishing direct elections for the post of Mayor is a matter of conjecture, as in all the 12 Municipal Corporations, the Mayors belong to the AIADMK and the party has a majority in the respective councils. Since 1996 when elections to the civic bodies were revived, the manner of conducting the Mayoral polls has undergone changes and the number of Municipal Corporations has also expanded from six to 12.
Mayors were directly elected to the six Corporations – Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruchi, Tirunelveli and Salem – in 1996. The process remained unchanged in 2001. But the DMK Government amended the law in 2006 paving the way for indirect elections, after its Mayor M. K. Stalin faced a harrowing time in the Chennai Corporation where councillors belonging to the AIADMK-Congress-TMC outnumbered those of the DMK and its allies during 2001-02.
He resigned later under the one-man, one-post rule.
Municipalities in Vellore, Thoothukudi, Tirupur, Erode, Dindigul and Thanjavur were converted into Corporations in the last 10 years during the AIADMK and DMK regimes.
In 2011, the AIADMK restored direct elections and subsequently converted Dindigul and Thanjavur Municipalities into Corporations.
Now, it has moved a Bill to go back to indirect elections.
