The DMK won four seats while its arch rival the AIADAMK bagged three constituencies in the Assembly elections. Of the eight seats in the district, election in the Thanjavur Assembly constituency has been postponed to May 23 following charges of widespread cash distribution among voters.
The DMK won the Orathanad, Kumbakonam, Tiruvaiyaru and Tiruvidaimarudur seats while the AIADMK bagged Pattukkottai, Peravurani, and Papanasam seats.
Giant killer M. Ramachandran of the DMK created history by slaying the formidable Housing and Agriculture Minister R. Vaithilingam in the minister’s backyard of Orathanad.
Mr. Ramachandran, who had represented the erstwhile Thiruvonam constituency twice in the Assembly earlier, secured 84,378 votes to put it across Mr. Vaithilingam who managed to get 80,733 votes.
Mr. Ramachandran said that though Mr. Vaithilingam was the Agriculture Minister, he seldom felt the pulse of the suffering farmers but managed to get the benefit of State government schemes only for a coterie surrounding him. The power of people’s affection (towards me) defeated money power in Orathanad, the victorious DMK candidate said and added that his primary responsibility would be to create jobs for the educated unemployed youth in the region. Mr. Vaithilingam got lesser votes than the DMK candidates in his native Telengan Kudikadu village and that spoke of his plight in the constituency.
MLA Govi. Chezhian of the DMK pulled off a thrilling victory yet again in the Tiruvidaimarudur (Reserved) Constituency defeating his AIADMK rival U. Settu by a slender margin of 532 votes in a multi-cornered contest. The PMK’s R.S. Mathaiyan got 13,709 votes, VCK’s S. Vivekanandan secured 10,622 votes and NOTA accounted for 1,899 votes in the constituency.
Mr. Govi Chezhian had secured 76,818 votes against Mr. Settu’s tally of 76,846 votes in the popular poll while the DMK man’s postal vote aggregate of 720 tilted the scales in his favour as Mr. Settu got only 160 postal votes. Incidentally, Mr. Govi Chezhian managed a win in 2011 in similar circumstances only with just the postal votes giving him the victory.
In Kumbakonam, MLA G. Anbalagan of the DMK was able to retain his seat defeating the Kumbakonam Municipal Chairperson Rathna Sekar of the AIADMK. While Mr. Anbalagan aggregated 85,048 votes, Ms. Rathna Sekar got 76,591 votes only. Chief Minister and AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa replaced the party’s original candidate for the constituency Rama Ramanathan with Ms. Rathna Sekar at the eleventh hour but that could not stop Mr. Anbalagan from winning the seat for the DMK.
The DMK’s south party district secretary Durai Chandrasekaran comfortably defeated the AIADMK veteran M.G.M. Subramanian in the Tiruvaiyaru constituency to bolster the tally of the DMK. While Mr. Durai Chandrasekaran secured 1,00,043 votes in the elections, Mr. Subramanian could muster only 85,700 votes. The CPI (M) candidate V. Jeevakumar polled 8,604 votes but could not pose a real challenge to the hegemony of the Dravidian parties.
MLA R. Duraikannu of the AIADMK retained his Papanasam seat securing 82,407 votes to put it across Congressman T.R. Loganathan who tallied just 57,679 votes in coming a distant second. S.D. Jayakumar of the Tamil Maanila Congress came a cropper in getting only 18,498 votes in the constituency that was supposed to be the ``bastion'' of the Moopanars.
In Pattukkottai, the AIADMK’s V. Sekar comfortably fought off the challenge from his nearest Congress rival K. Mahendran by a margin of 12,358 votes. While Mr. Sekar got 70,631 votes, Mr. Mahendran secured 58,273 votes. N. Senthil Kumar of the DMDK polled 11,231 votes and the BJP’s Karuppu alias Muruganandam, who brought party national president Amit Shah to campaign for him, laboured to muster just 11,039 votes. In Peravurani constituency, the AIADMK’s M. Govindarasu managed to win his direct contest with the DMK's N. Ashok Kumar by a margin of 995 votes. Mr. Govindarasu secured 73,908 votes against Mr. Ashok Kumar’s tally of 72,913 votes. The CPI's Damayanthi Thirugnanam got 5,816 votes.
