It is a clean sweep for the DMK-led INDIA bloc in Tamil Nadu. The alliance has won in all the 39 constituencies in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry. It is the eighth consecutive electoral victory for DMK leader MK Stalin, since he took charge as the party president in 2018, after the demise of his father M. Karunanidhi.
“The BJP thought they would win 400 seats. But now they have been pushed to a position where they don’t have a majority to even form the government on their won,” Stalin told the media after his party’s sweeping victory. The DMK-led INDIA bloc in Tamil Nadu comprises of the Congress, the two left parties, Thol Thirumavalavan’s Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and a few minority parties.
Tamil Nadu witnessed a four-cornered contest with the DMK-led INDIA bloc, BJP’s rainbow alliance, AIADMK in alliance with DMDK and SDPI and Seeman’s Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) in the fray. While the fight was majorly between the AIADMK and the DMK, the BJP made a mark in this election in Tamil Nadu with its fierce campaign and road shows.
Narendra Modi’s road shows and state BJP president K. Annamalai’s ‘En Man En Makkal’ yatra, however did not help the BJP win even a single seat from the Dravidian land. The BJP contested from 23 out of the 40 constituencies in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. In key seats like Dharmapuri, Vellore, Tirunelveli, Theni, Ramanathapuram, Coimbatore, Kallakurichi and Villupuram, where AIADMK and NDA allies were expected to give a tough fight, the DMK won by more than 50,000 votes.
In all the three constituencies in Chennai—south, north and central Chennai—the BJP pushed Tamil Nadu’s opposition AIADMK to the third position. While the exit polls predicted three to four seats for the BJP and a clear victory for Annamalai in Coimbatore, the results have proved them wrong. Annamalai finished second in Coimbatore losing to DMK’s Ganapathy P. Rajkumar by 1.10 lakh votes. Annamalai, compared to his party colleagues Tamilisai Soundararajan, L. Murugan and Nainar Nagenthran, scored the maximum number of votes.
The AIADMK under Edappadi K. Palanisami lost yet another election. The party has been facing successive defeats since the demise of Jayalalithaa. AIADMK’s vote share dropped by over 12 per cent. In most of the constituencies, the party finished third next only to BJP alliance partners.
