DMK, Congress gearing up for local body election

COIMBATORE: With the local body elections due in October this year, DMK and Congress have started gearing up to retain power in civic bodies.On Sunday, DMK treasurer M K Stalin exhorted local party bigwigs including Pongalur N Palanisamy, Veeragopal and Deputy Mayor N Karthi to toil hard to garner the maximum number of seats in panchayats.He advised the party’s office-bearers to make efforts to repeat the results of 2006 local body elections here by highlighting the good schemes of DMK including Samacheer Kalvi during the campaign.As for the Congress, local leaders held discussions here under the guidance of former Union Minister R Prabhu while Minister for Shipping G K Vasan who attended various functions in Tirupur and Coimbatore on Saturday advised his supporters to start strengthening the party at ward level.The ruling AIADMK is hopeful of winning the local body elections easily. It feels the factors which enabled its amazing success in the recent Assembly polls will weigh in its favour once again.