chennai the supreme courts order on tuesday to conduct local body elections for nine districts in pandemicstruck tamil nadu could pose a logistical challenge for the state government battered and bruised by the second wave of covid19 the state is inching towards normalcyas the supreme court was told the polls could also be a tough task for the state election commission as the delimitation exercise should be completed and preparatory works carried out amidst the pandemicon the political front a bigger challenge is for the aiadmk the party suffered two successive defeats in the 2019 lok sabha elections and the 2021 assembly polls and its problems dont seem to have abated its principal rival the dmk is in power and history shows often the ruling party has more than an edge in the local body elections while in opposition party functionaries would think twice before spending for polls while ruling party men would not mind splurgingfactionalism remains a bigger challenge for the aiadmk party coordinator o panneerselvam and cocoordinator edappadi k palanisawami might say all is well between them but party cadres seem unconvinced though the rift would not play out much in terms of seat allocation as it happens to be rural local bodies with low profile postings the fissures might have a demoralising effect among cadresand then there is the sasikala factor the impact of her telephone politics on the aiadmk is not known yet but going by her conversations with randomlychosen functionaries many in the aiadmk feel that she might up her game in the coming days the 66yearold former aide of j jayalalithaa has been telling aiadmk cadres that she might meet them soonmost of the nine districts where the supreme court has asked for polls fall in northern tamil nadu where the aiadmk fared poorly in the assembly elections in chengalpet for instance the party could win just one of the seven seats in ranipet and vellore too it could win only one seat each it was eps who divided villupuram and made kallakurichi a separate district a longpending demand of the people there but even in kallakurichi the aiadmk could win just one of the five seats these northern districts helped the dmk up its numbers in the state assembly considerably all this in spite of the fact that the pmk which is considered to have a base in the northern districts was in the aiadmkled alliance after the eps government ordered a 105 quota for vanniyars in education and jobsand everything is not fine between the aiadmk and the pmk the aiadmk attempted some damage control by sacking party spokesman v pugazhendhi for attacking pmk leader anbumani ramadoss but the pmk has been welcoming some of the announcements of the dmk governmentwe may not know if the pmk would be in the aiadmk alliance for the local body polls says former aiadmk mp k c palaniswamy another challenge for the aiadmk is the threat of cases on functionaries he notedmanikandan