TIRUCHY: More than half of Tiruchy city cast their vote for the DMK-led alliance in the urban local body elections. The election results indicate that the DMK alone bagged 43.5 per cent of the total 4,45,257 votes polled.
DMK's alliance partner, the Congress, which fielded its candidates in five wards of the total 65 wards in Tiruchy Corporation, secured 2.79 percent votes.
Other partners – the CPI, CPM and the MDMK combined – got 4.89 percent votes.
In all, the DMK-led alliance secured about 51 percent of the votes.
The main opposition party, the AIADMK, totally secured 84,108 votes which is 18.89 percent of the total votes in the city.
The BJP, which fielded candidates in 60 wards, secured 6.21% of the votes.
Seeman's NTK, which contested in all 65 wards, could get 2.61 percent votes.
Moreover, a total of 174 independents took away 13.55 percent of the vote share.
Of the 52 DMK candidates, 49 emerged victorious and three finished second.
The AIADMK fielded candidates in all 65 wards but some of its candidates performed poorly. Only three of its candidates registered victory.
The BJP, which went alone in the election, had five of its candidates secure second spot. According to official data, as many as 470 candidates out of the total 589 lost their deposit.
Gender
When it comes to gender, the Corporation has 33 wards reserved for woman candidates. The DMK is going to send 28 female and 21 male councillors to the Corporation. The AIADMK has one woman councillor, while the Congress has two. One woman councillor is from the MDMK while another is an independent.
Highs and lows
The top five high-margin victories were registered by DMK candidates.
In Ward 57 that has 7,924 votes, DMK’s T Muthuselvam won by a margin of 5,696 votes.
In Ward 27, DMK's possible mayor candidate Mu Anbalagan got 5,430 votes of the total 7,207 polled and his winning margin was 4,819.
Similarly, in Ward 9, A Nagalakshmi won with a vote margin of 4,547.
In Ward 8, N Pankajam Mathivanan secured victory by a margin of 3,889 votes, and M Mathivanan, a DMK popular candidate in the city, won in Ward 16 by a margin of 3,883 votes.
Nail-biting contests were witnessed too in the election of as many as five candidates.
The Congress party's urban district secretary V Jawagar won by a margin of five votes in Ward 2. DMK's K Pannir Selvan won by 27 votes in Ward 12. AIADMK's K Ambikapathi won in Ward 65 by a margin of 63 votes. Another Congress candidate and former mayor, S Sujatha, won by 66 votes in Ward 31. The lone AMMK councilor in the city, P Senthilnathan, won in Ward 47 by a margin of 157 votes.