For Quick Alerts
ALLOW NOTIFICATIONS  
For Daily Alerts
Oneindia App Download

The dwindling AIADMK vote share in R K Nagar constituency

While the AIADMK vote bank is expected to have a three-way split, other parties hope that a divided vote share works in their favour.

|
Google Oneindia News

Campaigning for the R K Nagar bypolls is on in full swing. With the Election Commission asking the two factions of the AIADMK not to use the two-leaves symbol, TTV Dinakaran and E Madhusudhanan are compelled to contest under different symbols and party names. While the R K Nagar seat has been an AIADMK bastion since 2001, the party has seen its vote share dwindling. With the absence of the two-leaves symbol and divided cadre, both factions of the AIADMK are likely to split the vote that the party has in the constituency.

TTV Dinakaran

The AIADMK has been winning the R K Nagar seat since 2001 but vote share has been on the decline for the party. A sitting chief minister and perhaps the most popular face of the party after M G Ramachandran, Jayalalithaa also could not secure the party's vote share in the constituency and saw a downward swing in the 2016 assembly elections.

When Jayalalithaa contested from the R K Nagar constituency for the first time, she won with a huge margin of 1,50,722 votes. Her closest rival, CPI's candidate C Mahadevan was a distant second with a mere 9,710. Jayalalithaa had literally stolen the show. The AIADMK's vote share stood at a staggering 88.43 percent in the 2015 bypoll. The upward swing for the party in comparison to the previous polls was 29.41 percent in the positive.

The same was not the case in 2016 elections. Within one year of the 2015 bypoll, AIADMK saw its vote share dwindling in the R K Nagar constituency. Despite Jayalalithaa once again contesting from the constituency, vote share dropped by a whopping 32.57 percent. She managed a win but with a margin of 39,545 votes, a far cry from her previous thumping victory. Her rival and DMK candidate Shimla Muthuchozhan came alarming close to defeating Jayalalithaa with 57,673 votes. The AIADMK's vote share stood at 55.87. It was evident that the party had lost a lot of its vote share, 32.57 to be precise.

In 1991, Madhusudhanan, the current candidate from O Panneerselvam camp had won the R K Nagar seat. The very next election, the DMK managed to win in the constituency. Starting 2001, the constituency was won consecutively by the AIADMK. P K Sekar Babu managed to secure a win in 2001 and has been a two-time MP followed by AIADMK's Vetrivel. He, however, vacated the seat in 2015 for Jayalalithaa to contest. The euphoria when Jayalalithaa chose to contest from R K Nagar in a poll in 2015 was evident but the 2016 poll results showed that the dwindling vote share was a cause of concern for the AIADMK.

Now, two factions of the AIADMK are staring at a further split in votes. While the Panneerselvam camp claims that the cadres support his candidate, Dinakaran has claimed to have majority support. With a divided cadre, the votes are also expected to be divided. While the BJP, DMK have not fielded heavyweight candidates, Deepa Jayakumar hopes to get the support of the people of Jayalalithaa's constituency. While the AIADMK vote bank is expected to have a three-way split between O Panneerselvam, TTV Dinakarana and Deepa Jayakumar, other parties hope that a divided vote share works in their favour.

OneIndia News

For Daily Alerts
Get Instant News Updates
Enable
x
Notification Settings X
Time Settings
Done
Clear Notification X
Do you want to clear all the notifications from your inbox?
Settings X
X