DMK’s Kathir Anand wins Vellore Lok Sabha election

CHENNAI: DMK added one more MP, winning the Vellore Lok Sabha seat on Friday by a margin of 8,141 votes against AIADMK alliance candidate in a close contest. DMK's D M Kathir Anand polled 4.85 lakh votes against New Justice Party chief and AIADMK alliance candidate A C Shanmugham who got 4.77 lakh votes.
With this, the DMK alliance has won 38 out of 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu.
The narrow victory margin was a far cry from the 1.0 lakh - 5.5 lakh vote margins that the DMK alliance candidates registered in the April-May Lok Sabha elections. It is also a fact that DMK managed to hold on to its ground in an election, which had all the characteristics of a bypoll, where the ruling party had deployed its entire cabinet, besides the MLAs and MPs.
Eventually, it turned out to be a close call for both the sides. While DMK was banking on the support of more than three lakh minority voters in the constituency, the AIADMK too, with an eye on the Muslim voters, was smart enough to keep the BJP away from the Vellore campaign, where elections were held on August 5.

DMK cadre celebrating party’s victory in Vellore Lok Sabha election, in Chennai on Friday. (TOI photo by B A Raju)
While DMK harped on the triple talaq law, the AIADMK quickly managed to overcome its flip flop on the issue in Parliament.
Finally, it was the minorities who had helped the DMK candidate edge past the winning post, with Ambur assembly segment, with a dominant presence of Muslims, giving him a sizeable percentage of the eventual winning margin. Even Vaniyambadi, another assembly segment with sizeable number of minorities, chipped in.
Beyond the minorities, DMK had highlighted the achievements of the DMK alliance MPs in a short time in Lok Sabha. On the other hand, AIADMK highlighted the fact that it was the ruling party in the state, while its ally BJP is ruling the Centre and this alliance was better placed to help the Vellore constituency to prosper.
It was altogether a different story at the beginning. AIADMK alliance candidate Shanmugham had taken a slender but steady lead initially and sustained it up to the fourth round. As the polled votes were taken up for counting at 8am, Shanmugham kept edging past Kathir Anand starting with postal votes and barring an odd blip initially.
At the end of third round of counting, Shanmugham had established a lead of over 6,500 votes and it went up to 14,000 votes in the next round. From then on, the DMK started reversing the trend and held on to the lead, despite fluctuations.