Headlines
Jayalalithaa juggernaut rolls down opposition
Chennai, June 30
AIADMK general secretary and
Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa returned to the Tamil Nadu assembly on
Tuesday crushing the opposition by a by a record victory margin from the
Radkhakrishnan Nagar constituency here.
Jayalalithaa polled
160,432 votes while her nearest rival, Communist Party of India's (CPI)
C. Mahendran, got just 9,710 votes -- a victory margin of a whopping
150,722 votes.
The total electorate in the constituency was around 245,000, and the chief minister bagged 65 percent of all votes polled.
Going
by the votes polled by Jayalalithaa, it is clear the vote banks of the
opposition parties which boycotted the polls fell into her kitty and did
not go to the CPI.
Mahendran was followed by independent
candidate and social activist K.R. Ramaswamy, popularly known as
"Traffic Ramaswamy" (4,590 votes) while 2,376 people opted for `None of
the Above' category.
While there were 28 candidates in the fray, only CPI's Mahendran was viewed as a serious opponent for Jayalalithaa.
As
noisy celebrations erupted at the AIADMK headquarters and outside
Jayalalithaa's residence, Tamil Nadu Governor K. Rosaiah congratulated
her over her landslide win.
Central Minister of State for Road
Transport, Highways and Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan of the Bharatiya
Janata Party conveyed his "heartfelt greetings" to Jayalalithaa on her
mega victory.
AIADMK activists and leaders generously distributed sweets to all and sundry and burst crackers to celebrate.
An
elated Jayalalithaa thanked voters and AIADMK supporters for her
victory and said the result was a forerunner for the 2016 assembly
election.
This is the seventh by-election victory for the AIADMK
since it came to power in 2011. The party has won all the by-elections
held since 2011.
In 2006, AIADMK's P.K. Sekarbabu polled 84,462
votes in Radhakrishnan Nagar. In 2011, P. Vetrivel of AIADMK got 83,777
votes and defeated Sekarbabu, who by then was in the DMK. Vetrivel's
victory margin was over 31,000 votes.
Major opposition parties
like the DMK, the PMK, the DMDK, the Congress, the BJP and the MDMK
stayed away from the contest on different pretexts.
The CPI and the CPI-M fielded Mahendran as their joint candidate.
The
Radhakrishnan Nagar seat fell vacant after AIADMK's Vetrivel resigned
from the house to facilitate Jayalalithaa's re-election to the assembly.
Jayalalithaa,
elected from Srirangam in 2011, lost that seat and the chief minister's
post after a trial court in Bengaluru convicted her in the
disproportionate assets case.
The Karnataka High Court upheld her
appeal and acquitted her of all charges. Jayalalithaa was again sworn
in as chief minister, but she has to get elected to the assembly within
six months.
The Karnataka government has gone on appeal against the high court order in the Supreme Court.