The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : AIADMK draws a blank in the south again

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 14, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

AIADMK draws a blank in the south again

By S. Annamalai

MADURAI, MAY 13. It was a rout triggered by drought. Drought of confidence in the ruling All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in its hinterland. The party faced one of its worst defeats since its formation in the south, from where it made its electoral debut as a fledgling in 1977.

The washout in 11 constituencies spread over Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga, Madurai, Virudhunagar, Tuticorin, Tirunelveli, Kanyakumari, Dindigul and Theni districts in the counting today equalled an unenviable record the AIADMK set for itself in 1996.

In the region, the Congress won five seats (Sivaganga, Dindigul, Palani, Tirunelveli and Periyakulam), followed by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Ramanathapuram and Tiruchendur) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (Madurai and Nagercoil) with two each, and the Communist Party of India (Tenkasi) and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Sivakasi) winning one apiece.

Prominent among the winners are the former Union Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, who won on the Congress ticket from Sivaganga, defeating the AIADMK's S. P. Karuppiah, by a margin of 1,60,398 votes.

The former Union Minister, R. Dhanushkodi Adityan, of the Congress, romped home from Tirunelveli, defeating his AIADMK rival, R. Amirtha Ganesan, by a margin of 1,67,075 votes. The veteran Congress leader, N. S. V. Chittan, defeated the AIADMK candidate, M. Jeyaraman, by a margin of 1,55,171 votes in Dindigul.

The prominent losers included the Janata Party president, Subramanian Swamy, who polled 12,009 votes in Madurai, 84 less than the Dalit Panthers of India candidate, P. Sakthivel. Dr. Swamy has lost his deposit for the second time in Madurai, a seat he won in 1998. In the 1999 election, he got 20,489 in a multicornered contest.

In Periyakulam, the AIADMK candidate, T. T. V. Dinakaran, lost to the Congress nominee, J. M. Aaron Rashid, by a margin of 21,555 votes.

In Sivakasi, which witnessed the lone incident of violence on the polling day, the MDMK candidate, Sippiparai A. Ravichandran, defeated the AIADMK nominee, P. Kannan, by a margin of 1,64,517 votes.

V. Radhika Selvi of the DMK, widow of `Pannaiyar' Venkatesan, who was killed in a police encounter in Chennai, won the Tiruchendur seat, by a margin of 1,81,681 votes, over her AIADMK rival, T. Dhamodharan.

The AIADMK won a maximum of six seats in the region in the 1998 and 1999 Lok Sabha elections but drew a blank only once, in 1996.

For the Congress, it is a gain of four seats, from one in the 1999 election. The Tamil Manila Congress won the maximum of eight seats in the south in 1996.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu