While the ruling AIADMK and its electoral ally BJP have managed to win Ambasamudram and Tirunelveli Assembly segments in the district, the DMK and its ally, Congress, have bagged remaining three constituencies – Palayamkottai, Nanguneri and Radhapuram.
In the outgoing Assembly, the district had 3 AIADMK MLAs elected from Ambasamudram, Nanguneri and Radhapuram constituencies while the DMK had won Palayamkottai and Tirunelveli constituencies.
AIADMK candidate for Ambasamudram segment, Esakki Subbaya, who defeated DMK’s R. Avudaiyappan in 2011 by a whopping margin of 24,609 votes in the same constituency to become the Law Minister for two months in the Jayalalithaa-led Cabinet, demonstrated his supremacy by winning the electorate’s confidence again. He has now defeated the former Speaker of Tamil Nadu Assembly by 16,915 votes.
DMK’s M. Appavu, who took on AIADMK candidate and sitting MLA I.S. Inbadurai in the coastal segment of Radhapuram, poised to defeat the ruling party candidate by a margin of 4,451 votes polled in Electronic Voting Machine and the postal ballots are yet to be counted.
Interestingly, Mr. Appavu is indefinitely fighting long-drawn legal battle against Mr. Inbadurai in the Supreme Court, which stayed the announcement of recounting of postal votes polled in 2016 Assembly, polls as directed by the Madras High Court. In the 2016 polls, Mr. Appavu lost the battle to Mr. Inbadurai by wafer thin margin of just 49 votes.
Justice rendered
“I am very much relieved as the Almighty has rendered justice to me… Now, I am waiting for the Supreme Court’s verdict on the declaration of the result of recounting of votes polled in the Assembly election held in 2016,” said Mr. Appavu, who had performed ‘hat-trick’ by getting elected to the Assembly from this constituency in 1996, 2001 and 2006.
In Nanguneri constituency that witnessed the by-poll in 2019 after its MLA H. Vasanthakumar resigned on being elected to the Lok Sabha from Kanniyakumari parliamentary constituency, Congress candidate Ruby R. Manoharan is all set to defeat his nearest AIADMK candidate Thatchai N. Ganesa Raja, who is also the ruling party’s Tirunelveli district secretary.
When Mr. Ganesa Raja had completed his preliminary election works in Tirunelveli constituency with the hope getting this seat, he was forced to contest from Nanguneri after the Tirunelveli constituency was taken away by the BJP even before the seat sharing talks and started the election campaign on its own.
In Tirunelveli, AIADMK’s electoral ally BJP sprung a surprise as its candidate and party’s State vice-president Nainar Nagenthran is all set to outsmart DMK’s A.L.S. Lakshmanan. Interestingly, Mr. Lakshmanan, who had earned the distinction of ‘non-performing MLA’ over the past five years, had defeated Mr. Nagenthran by an insignificant margin of 601 votes in the 2016 Assembly polls in the same segment.
As usual, Palayakottai, a bastion of DMK, went in favour of the Opposition party as its candidate Abdul Wahab defeated AIADMK’s K.J.C. Jerald by a margin of 52,141votes. DMK had denied ticket to former Minister and sitting MLA of this constituency T.P.M. Mohideen Khan, who was elected to the Assembly from the segment with high literacy rate for four successive tenure – from 2001 to 2016
