BJP has won one of the councillor seats out of 200 wards in the Greater Chennai Corporation. Uma Anandan won ward 134, West Mambalam, becoming the sole winner for the party in the city.
This ward had seen severe water logging during the many spells of heavy rain in 2021. According to the BJP, Uma Anandan won because of anti-incumbency.
Uma Anandan, had been embroiled in controversy during the campaign for the polls, for praising Nathuram Godse who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, and for speaking demeaningly of Muslims and Christians.
In a video clip that did the rounds on social media, an interviewer asks Uma, “Are you saying that the majority of those who pick up knives and guns are Christians and Muslims?” to which Uma replies, “Yes.”
When asked by the interviewer about Godse shooting Gandhi, she asks “But why did he shoot him?” Later in the same clip she agrees that Godse was a Hindu and goes on to say, “He had his own justification,” and “I have no regrets, I am a supporter of Godse.”
As the results of Tamil Nadu urban local body polls came in on Tuesday, 22 February, many on social media posted clips of old interviews given by Uma Anandan, where she is seen defending the caste-system, standing for Brahmin supremacy, and using derogatory language against Dalit leaders like VCK chief Thol Thirumavalavan and anti-caste activists like Periyar.
In one video she says, “I have pride in being a Brahmin. I don’t have a caste mania, but I am proud of my heritage. Castes exist. It is part of our culture. If caste is gone, we don’t have any culture.” In the same video, she also speaks of “Brahmins hitting back”; she goes on to use abusive language to describe K Veeramani, the general secretary of the Dravida Kazhagam, the anti-caste ideological parent organisation of the DMK. The DK does not participate in electoral politics.
BJP has won 22 corporation seats, 56 municipality wards, and 230 Town Panchayat wards across Tamil Nadu. The single-phase election was held to fill up 12,838 posts in 21 corporations, 138 municipalities, 490 town panchayats and 649 urban local bodies across Tamil Nadu.
A total of 74,416 candidates including many independents were contesting.
(Published in arrangement with The News Minute)
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