The AIADMK on Sunday retained the Yercaud (ST) Assembly constituency by a huge victory margin of 78,116 votes bagging 1,42,771 of the 2,14,406 votes polled in the by-election held on December 4.
Reacting to the landslide win, party general secretary and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa said it was a vindication of her government’s functioning.
“The huge margin is a strong sign of approval for my government’s policies and for the implementation of various government schemes. I thank the voters of Yercaud for giving such a massive victory to the AIADMK,” she said in Chennai.
Later in the day, Jayalalithaa said she had been confident of the victory, given the response she had seen when she campaigned there.
The ruling party candidate P Saroja maintained unassailable leads of over 50 per cent against her principal rival V Maran of the DMK right from the first round of counting of votes polled in a by-election that saw a record voter turnout of 89.23%.
In the end, she managed to garner more than double the 2011 victory margin for the ruling party in the constituency that was represented by her husband C Perumal, whose death in July had necessitated the bypoll. Perumal’s victory margin in 2011 was only 38,550 votes.
The AIADMK has thus kept up with the trend of improvising its vote percentage during the past three bypolls over its performance in the 2011 Assembly elections.
Maran, however, managed to retain his deposit garnering 64,655 votes. This is 1,984 votes less than what
C Tamilselvan, the DMK candidate, secured in the 2011. Except in his native village Poovanur, Maran polled far fewer votes than Saroja in the remaining 289 booths.
Incidentally, the NOTA (None of The Above) votes accounted for 4,431, higher than the combined tally of 2,548 votes polled by nine Independents.
The certificate to the winner was issued at 6 pm, an auspicious time, 45 minutes after the 21 rounds of counting were completed. Of the 2,40,290 electors in the constituency, 2,14,406 had exercised their franchise (including nine postal votes of which one was invalid).
Maran, who sat through the 21 rounds knowing he was trailing behind in every round, left the counting centre during the fag end of the process. Nonetheless he pledged to work for the DMK under party leader Stalin.
Saroja said she thanked her party colleagues for working hard to ensure her victory and promised to work according to the wishes and directions of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.
Later, Jayalalithaa exhorted party workers to work with the same zeal to ensure that the AIADMK won all 40 seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry during next year’s Lok Sabha polls.
“Only a complete victory for AIADMK will enable us make a significant contribution for good rule and governance at the all-India level and I desire that the victory in the General Elections will be on similar lines to the Yercaud bypoll victory,” the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister said.