The local body elections will be a litmus test for the Congress, which is facing the polls alone after a gap of 10 years.
While the Congress lost power in the State in 1967, it contested on its own in the 2001 local body elections when E.V.K.S. Elangovan was the president of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC). At that time, the Tamil Maanila Congress, founded by G.K. Moopanar, which had taken away a chunk of Congress strength, was in alliance with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).
H. Vasanthakumar had contested for the Chennai Mayor's post as Congress candidate.
“We have not won the post of Mayor in any municipal corporation in the past four decades without an alliance,” party sources said.
The sources, who did not want to be identified, lamented that the party, which claimed to have at least 12 per cent votes in the State and was boasting of its crucial contribution for the victory of any front it joined – be it the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam – fared poorly in the recent Assembly elections securing only five of the 63 seats it contested.
“Even now we are confident that Congress has political space in Tamil Nadu. But the erosion of its strength is there for all to see. The organisation looks extremely weak with factional squabbles becoming the norm of the day and the final list of candidates has to wait till the eleventh hour,” they said.
A section of the party feels that the high command was apathetic towards the condition of the State unit. “Though TNCC president K.V. Thangkabalu put in his papers more than four months ago, neither has a replacement been found, nor has it been clarified that he would continue.
There has been no attempt even to study what went wrong in the Assembly elections,” party sources said.
Multi-polar contest
If there is still considerable enthusiasm among the partymen about contesting the local body elections, it is because of the confidence that they can perform well in the multi-polar contest involving more than half–a-dozen candidates.
They said this enthusiasm was because of their confidence in the “inherent strength and vitality of the party” and as they would have to tackle only “local issues”. At the same time, the crucial role of “caste and money power” in such a scenario could not be ruled out, they observed.
