Mayor elections 2011

Chennai Corporation (formerly known as Madras Corporation) is the civic body that governs the city of Chennai. It is the oldest corporation in India. It was formed and inaugurated on 29th September 1688. It is headed by a mayor, presiding over 155 councilors in the city. Each ward is represented by 1 councilor. Nathaniel Higginson was the first Mayor, (11 October 1652 – 31 October 1708) was an English politician and a scion of the Higginson family of Salem, Massachusetts who served as the first Mayor of Madras and later as the President of the colony from 3 October 1692 to 7 July 1698.

In 1913, the Corporation moved to the newly constructed Ripon building, which was named after Lord Ripon, who was the Viceroy of India from 1880 to 1884 and had introduced the local government reforms. At present, Chennai Corporation has been expanded to the suburbs with an addition of 45 wards (9 municipalities, 8 town panchayats and 25 village panchayats) which has been merged to the existing 155 wards making it a total of 200 wards. The expanded area stretches to Sholinganallur in the south, Kathivakkam in the north and Ambattur in the west adding 5 more zones to the previous list of 10 zones, totaling to 15 zones at present. Teynampet has the highest electorate of 5.12 lakh people and Manali has the lowest population of 56,864 voters.

The Corporation civic body elections are being held on 17th October 2011. 32 candidates are standing for the post of Mayor of Chennai Corporation. The big pie that parties are eying is the Chennai mayor's post, which the DMK has won since 1996. DMK treasurer M K Stalin was elected twice to the post. "In 2001, the party representative 'Karate' S Thiyagarajan was elected deputy mayor. When Stalin resigned from the post after the 'one-man-one-post' legislation was passed in the state assembly, Thiyagarajan was made acting mayor. But this time AIADMK supremo Ms.Jayalalitha wants a party candidate to win the prestigious post. Moreover, this is the first mayor election for the Greater Chennai, which consists of 200 wards.

With the rising population and expansion of the city of Chennai this civic body election is going to be a tough competition between the candidates to get elected and sustain themselves to the demanding needs of the city. Every citizen should vote to bring a change and to implement plans and schemes that would make a cleaner and greener Chennai.