AIADMK wave sweeps Erode

Ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam (AIADMK) has made a clean sweep of all the eight Assembly segments in the district.

Barring Modakurichi and Anthiyur constituencies where DMK candidates had slender leads before ceding ground to AIADMK contestants, in the six other segments: Erode East, Erode West, Perundurai, Gobichettipalayam, Bhavani and Bhavani Sagar, ruling party candidates kept increasing their leading margins from the very first round.

Among them are sitting MLAs: Thoppu N.D. Venkatachalam in Perundurai, K.V. Ramalingam in Erode West and K.A. Sengottaiyan in Gobichettipalayam of the ruling party.

Mr. Venkatachalam won comprehensively with a tally of 80, 292 votes. His DMK rival K.P. Samy got 67,521 votes.

In Gobichettipalayam, Mr. Sengottaiyan, a former Minister, was declared winner with 95,859 votes. His Congress rival S.V. Saravanan got 83,879 votes. CPI (M) candidate M. Munusamy came a far third with 7, 489 votes.

In Erode West, Mr. Ramalingam, a former Minister, secured 82, 297 votes as against 77, 391 by S. Muthusamy of DMK, also a former Minister.

Anthiyur AIADMK candidate EMR Raja who trailed behind DMK rival A.G. Venkatachalam till the 12th round consolidated his position thereafter. At the end of the 18th round, Mr. Raja polled 71, 575 votes as against 66, 263 by Mr. Venkatachalam.

Likewise, in Modakurichi, DMK candidate P.Sachidanandam had a slender lead of 122 votes in the first round. At the end, he polled 74, 845 votes and lost to V.P. Sivasubramani of AIADMK who secured 76, 835 votes.

Significantly, this achievement could be construed a near repeat performance by AIADMK in Erode district. The only difference in 2011 election was that the winners in Bhavani Sagar (P.L.Sundaram of CPI) and Erode East (V.C.Chandirakumar who was then in DMDK) contested and won as candidates of AIADMK’s alliance partners.

This time, too, these two sitting MLAs contested and lost. Mr. P.L.Sundaram who contested as a candidate of People’s Welfare Front and got 27, 965 votes was pushed to the third position.