The Hindu : Front Page : DMK front headed for a big win in Tamil Nadu

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 09, 2006

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DMK front headed for a big win in Tamil Nadu

Sanjay Kumar, Rajeeva L. Karandikar, G. Koteshwar Prasad and Yogendra Yadav

The HinduCNN-IBN Exit Poll finds 10 % point lead, predicts 157-167 seats for DPA; coalition government likely

D-DAY: Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M. Karunanidhi getting the indelible ink mark on his finger at a polling booth in Chennai on Monday as he prepares to exercise his franchise for the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. - PHOTO: R. RAGHU

New Delhi: After a month of suspense and impressions of a cliffhanger, the voters of Tamil Nadu have given a decisive verdict. The late swing has worked once again, this time for the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led alliance.

The Hindu-CNN-IBN Exit Poll, conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, has found that the DMK-led alliance has a clear lead of 10 percentage points over the AIADMK-led alliance in terms of vote share. The DMK-led alliance is expected to secure around 45 per cent of the vote, as against 35 per cent for the AIADMK front. This gap is sufficient to give the Democratic Progressive Alliance a handsome majority of anything between 157 and 167 seats in the 234-member Assembly. However, it is not enough to give the dominant partner, the DMK, a majority on its own. If this seat prediction proves correct, this will be the first time since 1957 that no single party has a majority on its own. Tamil Nadu looks set to have its first coalition government.

Not a sweep

Although a decisive victory, this is not the kind of electoral sweep one has come to associate with Tamil Nadu. In the 2001 Assembly elections, the gap between the two major alliances was 19 percentage points. In the 1996 Assembly elections, it was 22. A gap of 10 percentage points should normally yield a bigger victory than the one projected by this exit poll.

But the DMK alliance's substantial lead is not evenly spread across the State's regions. It appears to have swept all before it in the southern region. The AIADMK's tie-up with the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam does not appear to have helped much here. In the northern regions, the AIADMK has put up stiff resistance. Here, the Pattali Makkal Katchi does not appear to have helped the DMK alliance much but the Congress and the Left parties have pulled their weight. The other two regions, the west and the Cauvery delta, have swung to the DMK alliance. But it may not be a clean sweep here.

A surprising development is the emergence of Vijayakant's party, the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam, as a significant player. This new outfit appears to have garnered about 10 per cent of the vote. Since these votes are fairly evenly distributed, the party may find it difficult to pick up more than a few seats.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, other smaller parties, and independents account for the remaining 10 per cent of the popular vote.

The exit poll was conducted in 77 Assembly constituencies (the returns for one constituency, Mylapore, were cancelled for technical reasons). A total of 11,394 respondents were interviewed in 314 polling stations across the State. The profile of the sample was a fair reflection of the demographic mix. The sample comprised 45 per cent women.

Seven per cent were Muslims, eight per cent Christians, and 27 per cent Dalits. About 67 per cent of the respondents were from rural areas.

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