DMK-led alliance overwhelms AIADMK, bucks national trend
Chennai: Bucking the national trend that favoured the BJP, the DMK-led alliance on Thursday led in a whopping 36 of the 38 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu, dealing a major blow to the ruling AIADMK and its allies.
Prominent candidates of DMK and its allies like the Congress, Communist Party of India-Marxist, Communist Party of India (CPI) and others were leading over their rivals belonging to the AIADMK-led alliance across the state, Election Commission officials said.
As per the trends available from the counting centres, the DMK was leading in 21 places, the Congress in 8, CPI-M and CPI and VCK in two each and IUML in one seat.
The MDMK, KMDK and IJK contested under DMK’s “rising sun” symbol. On its own, the DMK was leading in 18 seats.
Tamil Nadu has 39 Lok Sabha seats. The Election Commission had rescinded the poll in Vellore on the grounds of money play by the DMK candidate.
The results are a big blow to the ruling AIADMK as its number of members in the Lok Sabha will be drastically go down to two if the current trends continue till the end.
The AIADMK is leading in Theni and Chidambaram Lok Sabha seats.
The BJP contested and lost all five seats including that of Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan (Kanyakumari).
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, under the leadership of then Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, the AIADMK contested on its own in 39 seats and won 37. The remaining two seats went to the BJP (Kanyakumari) and PMK (Dharmapuri).
The star candidates of DMK this time like Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi, former Union Ministers T.R. Baalu, A. Raja and Dayanidhi Maran weree in the lead, officials said.
Prominent Congress candidates Karti P. Chidambaram, H. Vasanthakumar, S. Jothimani and Su. Thirunavukarasar were also on the victory lap.
The Lok Sabha polls saw a four-cornered contest. The two major fronts are: the AIADMK-led front comprising the PMK, BJP, DMDK, TMC, PT, PNK and others and the DMK-led front consisting of the Congress, MDMK, IUML, CPI, CPI-M, VCK, KMDK and IJK.
The AMMK floated by independent legislator T.T.V. Dhinakaran and the MNM floated by actor-politician Kamal Haasan made their electoral debut.
BJP leaders blamed “negative propaganda” by its political foes for its poor showing.
