Months after winning the legislative assembly elections, the ruling party of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu – DMK – on Wednesday emerged victorious at the local village council polls held in nine districts.
The elections were held on two days – 6 and 9 October – with as many as 79,433 candidates vying for 27,003 posts.
Although the official result is yet to be declared by the State Election Commission, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is the clear frontrunner and is expected to win most of the seats of the 140 District Panchayat (village council) Wards, as per Indian media reports.
The local elections have been also viewed as the first test for newly elected State Chief and DMK leader M. K. Stalin.
This is the first election since Stalin took charge of the state in May, after defeating the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance.
Stalin took to Twitter to congratulat all of his party workers and winning candidates. He also thanked voters for the result and called it an endorsement of the first five months of his party's government.
"We will work even harder... will protect the confidence people have in us. The goodwill for us has increased over the last five months," he wrote in the Tamil language.
Meanwhile, "#SinglevoteBJP" is trending on Twitter after BJP politician D. Karthik only managed a solitary vote in the polls.
However, Karthik later clarified that he contested the election as an independent candidate, not representing the BJP.