Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

Close contests in Harbour, Perambur

Staff Reporter

Substantial votes for Vijayakant's DMDK narrow winners' margins

CHENNAI: The pendulum fluctuated wildly at the counting centre in Queen Mary's College on Thursday morning where a close contest between the DMK-led alliance and the AIADMK-led front for the Harbour and Perambur constituencies kept counting agents on tenterhooks for more than three hours. In the final tally, DMK general secretary K. Anbazhagan beat MDMK candidate H. Seema Basheer by 409 votes in Harbour and CPI (M) candidate K. Mahendran beat MDMK candidate P. Manimaran by 2,788 votes in Perambur. But for a good period of time, the lead kept shifting.

In the first five rounds of counting, the difference in votes between the candidates was slender and counting agents were not ruling out any surprises. Mohammed Yasin, Corporation councillor and a counting agent at the Harbour stall for Mr. Anbazhagan, was among those who were surprised at the closeness of the contest.

"No one imagined it would be this close," he said as Mr. Anbazhagan surged ahead by just a few hundred votes around 10 a.m.

The political cadres attribute the close contest not to the candidates of the two main alliances, but to the solid show put up by candidates of actor Vijayakant's newly floated party Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK). The party's candidate for Harbour C. Chandraprakasam secured 4,781 votes and its candidate for Perambur J. Lingam got 15,881 votes.

Mr. Mahendran, who spoke to reporters after receiving his election certificate from the returning officer, said he was surprised at the number of votes polled by the DMDK.

The CPI (M) candidate was not at the counting centre for most part of the counting process, but came by during the last round.

"It was a close contest and I kept track by calling up my agents. When they said that DMDK candidate was winning more than 1,000 votes in every round, I simply could not believe it."

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