All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Joint Coordinator Edappadi K. Palaniswami recorded a hatrick win at the Assembly elections, polling 1,63,154 votes.
Mr. Palaniswami, who became the Chief Minister following the death of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and who contested the elections as AIADMK’s Chief Ministerial candidate, defeated DMK’s T. Sampath Kumar by a margin of 93,802 votes.
The advantage of being a Chief Minister candidate and the coalition with Pattali Makkal Katchi helped him record such a huge margin over the rival candidate. In the 2011 and 2016 elections, Mr.Palaniswami won from the constituency with a margin of 42,022 votes and 34,738 votes respectively against candidates of PMK here.
The coalition with PMK was important for him and providing 10.5% internal reservation for Vanniyar community, though temporary, has worked in favour of Mr.Palaniswami. It looks like it ensured a consolidation of Vanniyar votes as calculated by him.
Vanniyars form an important vote base in the Edappadi constituency.
As claimed by Mr.Palaniswami, perhaps he must be the only Chief Minister who visited his native district and constituency at least once a month and the various development works carried out by him in the district also garnered votes for the AIADMK.
Cadres across political parties agree to the fact that Mr.Palaniswami did bring in various development projects to the district using his power and the education institutions and at least half dozen flyovers constructed by him stand testimony to it.
