The Jaya juggernaut kept rolling in the State with the AIADMK crushing the Opposition DMDK by a huge margin of 71,498 votes in the Pudukottai bypoll. In the results declared on Friday, AIADMK candidate V R Karthick Thondaiman polled over one lakh votes, a feat achieved only on a few occasions in the history of Tamil Nadu.
This is the ruling party’s third consecutive bypoll victory after those in Tiruchy-West and Sankarankoil.
Thondaiman bagged 1,01,998 votes of the total 1,43,376 polled, beating his nearest rival Jahir Hussain of the DMDK and garnering a whopping 71.14 per cent vote share.
Describing the victory as a vote for the achievements of her government, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa noted that vote share of the AIADMK had gone up by 24 per cent though the party contested alone.
“The CPI secured 47 per cent of votes in the 2011 Assembly elections. Now, the AIADMK has secured 71 per cent of votes, thus marking a 24 per cent increase... All Opposition parties put together could secure only 29 per cent,” Jayalalithaa said in a statement in Chennai.
The figure has gone up despite the fact that the votes of the DMK had gone against the AIADMK. “This shows that the people are with the AIADMK,” she said. The AIADMK chief thanked voters for accepting her request and electing Thondaiman. She also hailed the AIADMK cadre and functionaries who had worked hard for the party’s victory.