Aravind SundaramLike always, Tamil Nadu elections this time was a thriller. Several constituencies saw closely fought contests. In one of our previous blogs, we saw how slender victory margins decided the fate of senior party leaders. Similarly, we saw three digit victory margins. Most importantly, this happened in strongholds of both AIADMK and DMK.
Here are the constituencies in Tamil Nadu which had three digit victory margins.
Thiyagarayanagar (T Nagar)
T Nagar is the most known locality of Chennai city for its popularity as a shopping destination. A large number of Upper Caste folks reside in this locality and that is one reason why this was considered as an AIADMK stronghold. AIADMK won this seat thrice from 2006, 2011 and 2016.
Unlikely, DMK took over the mantle from AIADMK this time after a tough fight. At the end, with a margin of just 137 votes, AIADMK lost. Even the vote share difference is a mere 0.10 percent (DMK – 40.57 | AIADMK – 40.47).
Katpadi
Durai Murugan is considered as the right hand man of M K Stalin. Moreover, Katpadi and the entire Vellore district is a DMK fortress. In the first few rounds, Durai Murugan seemed to be trailing with a sizable margin. At end of the final round, he took the lead and won with a slender gap of 746 votes.
Similarly, in the 2019 by election of Vellore lok sabha constituency, Kathir Anand of DMK won with a margin of 8141 votes. Therefore, we can visibly see AIADMK building its own fortress in the Northern districts too.
Mettur
Mettur is a constituency which has largely favored AIADMK from the beginning. Semmalai, AIADMK’s strongman once challenged the party’s founder MGR and contested separately as an independent. Then, MGR realized his importance and brought him back into the party. Since then, he has been the default choice for the people in many occasions.
Even then, AIADMK high command offered this seat to its ally PMK which also has a sizable people support in this region. While, PMK did manage to win this seat, the margin is just 656 (0.30 percent difference).
Krishnagiri
Not so far from Mettur, Krishnagiri is again a constituency where AIADMK always performs better. While the DMK candidate was giving a tough fight in each and every round, the AIADMK candidate too was showing his muscle power. Finally, AIADMK candidate won with a slender margin of 794 votes.
Tenkasi
Tenkasi is an assembly segment with national importance. Infact, several constituencies down south have this merit. Even though, AIADMK has a good amount of vote share, Congress always holds the edge here as a major chunk still remain as Congress loyalists. To fight AIADMK, DMK needs Congress and they were offered this seat. With just a difference of 370 votes, the Congress candidate snatched the mantle from AIADMK.
Modakkurichi
Modakkurichi is a bellwether constituency. We did mention the same in one of our previous blogs. The initial trends posed a tough fight between C K Saraswathi and the DMK General Secretary – Subbulakshmi Jagatheesan. The last round results gave a shocker as C K Saraswathi with 281 votes was among the 4 BJP MLAs who got elected to the assembly.
Keep watching this space for more updates on the recently concluded elections in five states.
Aravind Sundaram
