CHENNAI: The BJP has managed to win one ward in the polls for Greater Chennai Corporation. Its candidate Uma Anandhan triumphed in ward 134, polling 5,539 votes, followed by the Congress’s Sushila Gopalkrishnan with 3,503 votes and the AIADMK’s Anuradha with 2695.
Several BJP leaders called it a major victory and spoke about how the party was growing its base in the state. But leaders of Dravidian majors DMK and AIADMK said that going by the statistics, the vote share for the saffron party had reduced in the state over the years. In the 2016 assembly election, they said, the party had secured a 2. 8% vote share, but in the 2021 assembly election, it fell to 2. 6%. Also, in the 2011 civic polls, the BJP had won 222 wards out of 12,474; this time, it managed to bag only 195 of the 12,820 wards across the state until 6pm on Tuesday.
“It’s a perception that they are trying to build. They are not growing as their vote share is going down,” said AIADMK’s IT wing secretary Singai Ramachandran. HR & CE minister Sekar Babu of the DMK told TOI that in Harbour constituency the total votes polled by BJP were less than in 2016 when the ward’s votes for the party were put together.
However, according to the local body’s final results, in more than 20 wards, BJP candidates stood second to DMK. The wards include 187, 54, 55, 174, 95, 116, 129, 57, 165, 81, 164, 33, 175 coming under zones such as Alandur, Adyar, Madhavaram and Royapuram.
