Of the 100 candidates the AIADMK has fielded for the contest to the 100 wards in the Coimbatore Corporation, 43 are former councillors or spouses of former councillors, said party sources. The DMK, on the other hand, had field several new faces in the wards it had chosen to contest.
The AIADMK old timers included S.R. Arjunan alias Gopalakrishnan in Ward 4, Vanithamani in Ward 15, Venthamarai Balu in Ward 18, Rajendran in Ward 33, Gunasundari Jayakumar in Ward 39, Umadevi Dhanapal in Ward 43, Meherbanu in Ward 45, R. Prabhakaran in Ward 47, P. Thamaraiselvi in Ward 50, and Kalaivani Chandrasekar in Ward 62.
The DMK had, however, fielded very few former councillors like Kumutham in Ward 37, Meena Logu in Ward 46, Lakshmi Ilanselvi in Ward 52 and a few of those who were councillors in the then Kurichi and Kuniamuthur municipalities.
The CPI had fielded former councillor Purushothaman’s wife Malliha Purushothaman and the CPI(M) its district secretary V. Ramamoorthy in Ward 12. The Congress on its part had fielded former councillor R. Gayathri in Ward 44.
AIADMK sources said the party was relying on the good work of the AIADMK government and the AIADMK-led council from 2011-16 to score victory in the election. The DMK sources said those it had chose to contest in the elections to the local bodies were ward secretaries or kin of zonal secretaries. For, they would ensure victory by mobilising the party cadre on the ground.
