By IANS,
Chennai : The ruling parties of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, the AIADMK and All India NR Congress (AINRC), Thursday retained the Trichy West and Indira Nagar seats respectively.
The AIADMK’s M. Paranjothi got 69,029 votes against his closest rival, former DMK minister K.N. Nehru, who bagged 54,345 votes, according to the final figures announced by the Election Commission.
Polling for the two seats took place along with the Oct 13 balloting in the Hisar Lok Sabha constituency in Haryana and the assembly seats of Kadakwasla (Maharashtra), Banswada (Andhra Pradesh) and Daraunda (Bihar).
The by-poll in Tamil Nadu was necessitated by the death of AIADMK’s Mariam Pitchai in a road accident in May, soon after the party took power in the state.
In the April elections, Pitchai got 77,492 votes while Nehru got 70,313 votes out of 154,064 votes that were polled. The total electorate was 205,598. Pitchai polled 7,179 votes more than Nehru in April.
This time around, the AIADMK’s victory margin has nearly doubled, with Paranjothi getting 14,684 votes more than Nehru.
However, in terms of votes, the AIADMK and DMK polled lower number of votes than in April. However, the number of votes polled in Oct 13 elections was 127,433, much lesser than 154,064 votes polled in April elections.
Ever since counting began in Trichy, Paranjothi was in the lead, except when postal votes were counted. All five postal votes went to Nehru.
DMK founder and former chief minister M. Karunanidhi suggested that Nehru found the battle tough because the AIADMK controlled government resources.
“For Nehru, it was like running a race with the legs tied,” he said.
With this victory, AIADMK will have 150 members, including the speaker, in the 234-member house. It is followed by DMDK (29), DMK (23), the Communist Party of India-Marxist (10), the Communist Party of India (9), the Congress (5), the PMK (3), the MMK (2), the PT (2), the All India Forward Bloc (1).
In Puducherry, AINRC’s A. Tamilsevane won from Indira Nagar by securing 15,053 votes. His closest rival, K. Aroumougam of the Congress, got 7,007 votes.
AIADMK’s A. Venkateswaran got 1,578 votes and lost his security deposit.
The by-election in Puducherry followed the resignation of AINRC leader and Chief Minister N. Rangasamy, who won from two places in the May elections but chose to retain the Kadirkamam seat.
AINRC was barely two months old when it fought the assembly elections, aligning with the AIADMK for the 30 member house. Soon after the victory, the AINRC-AIADMK alliance broke.
A former Congressman, Rangasamy was the chief minister of the union territory from 2001 to 2008. In 2008, the Congress high command asked him to step down owing to internal problems.
The party-wise position in the 30-member Puducherry assembly now is — AINRC (15), Congress (7), AIADMK (5), DMK (2) and one independent.