The BJP, which contested in 20 constituencies from the AIADMK alliance, put up an impressive show in Tamil Nadu by winning four constituencies. The BJP has won Nagercoil, Tirunelveli, Coimbatore South and Modakurichi. In Coimbatore South, BJP’s women’s wing chief Vanathi Srinivasan won an intense battle with actor-politician Kamal Haasan. In Tirunelveli, former Jayalalithaa loyalist Nainar Nagendran pulled a comfortable victory, while M.R. Gandhi won from Nagercoil and C.K. Saraswathi defeated DMK’s SubbuLakshmi Jagadeesan from Modakurichi.
The BJP, by winning four out of the 20 constituencies it contested being in the AIADMK alliance, will get back into the Assembly after two decades. Earlier, it was in 2001 the BJP had won four seats as part of the DMK-led NDA. “We are happy to have our MLAs back in the Assembly,” said BJP’s state in-charge C.T. Ravi.
BJP’s victory in Nagercoil came as a surprise for even the party men, as M.R. Gandhi, a party veteran and national general council member, pulled a comfortable victory by upsetting former minister and DMK strongman N. Suresh Rajan. In 2016, Gandhi lost to Suresh Rajan. Again in Tirunelveli, Nainar Nagendran, a former AIADMK minister, is known as a Nellai strongman. Nagendran, who switched to the BJP after the death of Jayalalithaa in 2016, trounced DMK’s A.L.S. Lakshmanan. Nagendran is a popular face in Nellai, among the Dravidian stock.
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On the other hand, Vanathi Srinivasan fought an intense fight with Kamal Haasan. Though she started as a third contestant only after Kamal and Congress’s Mayura Jayakumar in the second place, the subsequent rounds of counting ensured a victory for her by a slender margin of over 1,500 votes. And C. Saraswathi was yet another surprise as she upset the prospects of DMK veteran SubbuLakshmi.
However, BJP’s star candidate, Khushubhu Sundar, lost to DMK’s Dr Ezhilan in Thousand Lights constituency, while its state unit president, L. Murugan, lost to DMK’s Kayalvizhi in a tough battle. And BJP’s brave face, K Annamalai, who contested from Aravakurichi, lost to DMK’s R. Elango.
The BJP with the four MLAs will be reopening its account in the state Assembly. While it was said that the lotus cannot bloom in Tamil Nadu, the national party has retained its vote share of over 2.5 per cent. BJP which contested in 180 seats in 2016 and scored 2.87 per cent votes has now won four seats and the vote share is 2.73 percent. In all the 20 constituencies together it contested, the BJP has won 11,80,456 votes.
