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After a month-long anxious wait, political parties in Tamil Nadu are set to face the day of reckoning when counting of votes will be taken up on Friday for the April 13 Assembly polls that saw a tightly fought contest between the fronts led by the DMK and the AIADMK.
The Electronic Voting Machines will be opened on May 13 that would unseal the fate of the leaders including the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK patriarch, Mr M. Karunanidhi, and his political rival the AIADMK chief, Ms J. Jayalalithaa, and their candidates who are keeping their fingers crossed with no palpable wave seen in the elections.
As many as 75.21 per cent of the voters in the State had exercised their franchise for the 234 Assembly seats.
The electoral outcome will come at a time when the 2G spectrum allocation probe, in which two members of the ruling DMK have been chargesheeted by the CBI, has emerged as a major topic of political discussion.
While former Telecom Minister, Mr A. Raja, has been jailed for his alleged role in the scam, the fate of Mr Karunanidhi’s daughter and Rajya Sabha MP, Ms Kanimozhi, will be decided on May 14, when a Delhi court is to pronounce its orders on her bail plea.
The succession issues still haunt the DMK’s first family but it is believed that the 87-year-old Karunanidhi himself may take over the reins in the event of the DMK being voted back to power.
The party had fielded its candidates from 119 seats and will be dependent on the support of the Congress, which has made a strong pitch for power-sharing.
Much is at stake for Ms Jayalalithaa, who fought a do or die battle in the elections to come back to power after a five-year long hiatus.
Her party had contested 160 seats besides allotting 42 to actor-politician Vijayakant’s DMDK.
Besides these leaders, other important names in the fray include the Deputy Chief Minister, Mr M.K. Stalin, former Chief Minister and AIADMK senior leader, Mr O. Panneerselvam, the DMDK founder Mr Vijayakant, CITU State General Secretary, Mr A. Sounderrajan and the TNCC President, Mr K.V. Thangkabalu, among others.
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