The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) appears to be firmly in control of the Lok Sabha election results in the state, with leads in 38 of the 39 parliamentary seats. The MK Stalin-led DMK fought the general elections as part of the opposition INDIA bloc.
In the 2019 elections, too, the DMK had swept all but one seat, with the lone victor turning out to be OP Ravindranath, son of then chief minister O Panneerselvam, of the AIADMK.
The BJP hoped to make inroads into the state and attempted to put an end to the proud Dravidian proclamation that the Lotus will “never bloom” in the state. Although the BJP is likely to fail in converting its popularity into seat wins, as per counting trends, the party appears to be securing second position in at least 10 constituencies, including Coimbatore, Chennai South and Chennai Central.
In a first, the BJP crossed the 10% vote share-mark in Tamil Nadu and has so far registered a share of 10.21%.
The main opposition, AIADMK, is likely to suffer a sharp drop in vote-share. Its ally, the DMDK, has however done well in Virudhunagar, with the party fielding the late Vijaykanth’s son V Vijaya Prabhakar against BJP’s Radhika Sarathkumar. The AIADMK faced difficulty in fielding powerful leaders, given most of them preferred to sit out the elections and save the electoral expenditure for the forthcoming Assembly polls.
BJP ally Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) is leading in its bastion Dharmapuri. The BJP contested on 23 seats in Tamil Nadu, leaving the remaining to PMK, Tamil Maanila Congress, and others. The AIADMK contested on 32 seats, giving five seats to DMDK and one each to smaller parties PT and SDPI.
“A substantial number of fence-sitting voters have endorsed the state government and CM Stalin’s policies, programmes and governance. This has made a difference to the DMK-AIADMK vote gap. Of course, TTV Dinakaran and Panneerselvam split may have impacted the AIADMK’s performance. The BJP’s performance was on expected lines. This proves that BJP’s approach to Tamil Nadu has not worked in its favour,” said political analyst N Sathiyamoorthy.
Tamil Nadu had voted on April 19 for the Lok Sabha polls after weeks of fierce campaigns and acrimonious debates, and a never-seen-before kind of spirited fight put up by the BJP to gain a foothold in the Dravidian land in 2024.
TRENDS IN KEY CONSTITUENCIES
In Coimbatore, DMK continues to be ahead and the margin between BJP state president K Annamalai and DMK candidate Ganapathy P Rajkumar, which was about 3,000 about an hour-and-a-half ago is widening and now the difference is 11,909. DMK’s A Raja is ahead by an unassailable 76,110 votes and BJP’s L Murugan is in the distant second spot and AIADMK’s D Logesh Tamilselvan is in the third spot.
The main opposition party, AIADMK which was leading in just two seats (Namakkal–S Tamilmani and Kallakurichi–R Kumaraguru) are now trailing behind their DMK rivals.
BJP’s ally PMK (Sowmiya Anbumani) is ahead in Dharmapuri by 16,516 votes and DMK’s Mani A is in the second position.
AIADMK’s partner Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam’s V Vijayaprabhakaran is ahead in Virudhunagar by a margin of 7,352 votes and well known Congress leader B Manickam Tagore is trailing behind him. BJP’s R Radikaa, a popular actress is in the third spot.
IAS officer-turned-politician Sasikanth Senthil (Congress) is leading in Tiruvallur by a huge margin of 98,246 votes.
AIADMK’s ally DMDK candidate K Nallathambi is in the second spot followed by BJP nominee Pon V Balaganapathy.
In Erode, where the AIADMK pinned its hopes on its candidate Aatral Ashok Kumar is trailing behind DMK’s KE Prakash by 44,351 votes.
DMK’s star candidates Kanimozhi (Thoothukudi), T R Baalu (Sriperumbudur), Dayanidhi Maran (Central Chennai), Tamizhachi Thangapandian (South Chennai) are leading in their respective constituencies.
Allies of the DMK including Congress party’s Karti Chidambaram (Sivaganga) and Marxist party candidate Su Venkatesan (Madurai) have a decisive lead over others.
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