The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Medical student files nomination

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 29, 2006
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Medical student files nomination

K. Manikandan

In Madambakkam, septuagenarian has no challengers

R. Jayaraman

TAMBARAM: Candidates who filed nominations for election to local bodies on Wednesday range from an aspiring doctor to a tireless septuagenarian.

S. Thamizharasi (22), a fourth-year medical college student, is among the hundreds of people who have submitted their applications for the post of Palavakkam Village Panchayat.

Apart from Thamizharasi, eight others have applied for the same post. It includes her mother S. Vasanthi who has applied as the alternate candidate.

Politics runs in the family as Thamizharasi's father K. Somu of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam was president of this panchayat for ten years before he resigned to contest the elections to the Tambaram Assembly constituency this year.

As the post of president for this panchayat is reserved for Woman (General) under the rotation policy, the student of Annamalai University filed her nomination papers at the St. Thomas Mount Panchayat Union in Chitlapakkam on Wednesday.

There are 17,079 voters in five wards of the panchayat. Ms. Thamizharasi said she always wanted to be involved in public service as her father was a trade unionist and then a panchayat president.

There was enough time for her to complete her medical education, Ms. Thamizharasi said, adding that whether she won or lost, she would continue to serve the people. No opponent for this 70-year-old

If election officials clear his nomination papers, a 70-year-old resident of Madambakkam could well become his Ward's representative for the third time in succession. R. Jayaraman, elected as councillor of Ward No. 15 of Madambakkam Town Panchayat in 1996 and in 2001, is the only one who has applied for the post of councillor in the ward.

A native of Nagapattinam where he served most of his life as a clerk in the Education Department, Jayaraman settled down in Madambakkam after his retirement with his only daughter and her husband, an employee of the Reserve Bank of India.

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