In South Chennai, J. Jayavardhan of the AIADMK marched to victory, notching up an unassailable lead over his principal rival, T.K.S. Elangovan of the DMK.
Counting began on a very slow and dull note and, due to technical glitches as well as confusion over tallying of votes and multiple times of verification, the results of the first round of counting was announced past noon, four hours after counting began. However, things improved towards the evening, and counting and announcement of results was made faster than earlier in the day. It was, however, the last constituency in the city to declare results.
Anna University came under a thick blanket of security with over 1,000 policemen and women from the city police in addition to armed policemen from the Central Industrial Security Force. No one without a valid pass was allowed anywhere close to the counting centre. Frisking of agents and media crew made it impossible for anyone to take mobile phones inside the counting centres. However, party cadre took exception and picked up an argument with the policemen for allowing ruling partymen without any valid passes near the counting centres.
The police, however, refuted it, stating they had even denied entry to a senior ruling party member supervising the party's electioneering in South Chennai.
