Madurai polls: Does braveheart fear defeat?

MADURAI: With just a couple of days left for polling for the Madurai Corporation elections, campaigning has touched a feverish pitch. But some star DMK campaigners, particularly Union Chemicals Minister and party local strongman, M K Alagiri, have all along been keeping off the hustings.When DMK’s mayoral candidate, P Packianathan, was asked about the missing star campaigners, he evaded the question and said top-level leaders do not canvass for votes in local body elections.  But sources say that Alagiri feels isolated as many of his close aides like ‘Pottu’ Suresh, Essar Gopi, his brother Easwaran, ‘Attack’ Pandi, Jayaraman and Gopinathan (husband of DMK mayor Thenmozhi) are all behind bars. A few of his aides remaining outside like P M Mannan, former deputy mayor  are on the run.Packianathan was the only person Alagiri could pick as mayoral candidate. For the post of councillors he has chosen two  henchman, Mubarak Mantri and Bose Muthaiah, a brother of ‘Essar’ Gopi.Alagiri is said to have opted out of the campaign trail as he himself is not sure of the poll outcome. There are 28 candidates vying for the mayor’s post – seven of them from various political parties.