Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa silenced her critics by scoring a landslide victory in the Assembly bypoll from RK Nagar seat in Chennai by a record margin of over 1.5 lakh votes. Her nearest rival C Mahendran (CPI) could poll just 9,710 votes. All 27 candidates, including Mahendran, lost their security deposits.
The bypolls for six seats, spread across Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Meghalaya, Tripura and Madhya Pradesh saw the ruling parties in the States winning all the seats. In a shot in the arm for the UDF Government in Kerala ahead of Assembly polls next year, KS Sabarinathan of the Congress on Tuesday won from Aruvikkara in Thiruvananthapuram by a margin of 10,128 votes defeating his nearest CPI(M) rival M Vijayakumar of the lDF. BJP candidate and former Union Minister O Rajagopal got 34,145 votes in the fierce triangular contest.
In MP, the BJP retained Garoth Assembly seat in Mandsaur district albeit with a reduced margin as compared to the 2013 Assembly polls. Chander Singh Sisodia defeated Congress’ Subhash Kumar Sojatia with a margin of 12,945 votes, an election officer said. The BJP had earlier won by a margin of 25,755 votes.
The CPI(M) won both the Pratapgarh (SC) and Surma (SC) Assembly seats by a huge margin in Tripura. The BJP pushed the Congress to third spot on both the seats. Ramu Das defeated his nearest BJP rival Mousami Das by a margin of 17,326 votes in Pratapgarh constituency while Anjan Das beat his nearest BJP rival Asish Das in Surma by a margin of 15,309 votes.
In Meghalaya, the Congress won the Chokpot seat by a margin of 2,550 votes with its candidate Blubell R Sangma defeating her nearest rival Philipole Marak of National People’s Party.
Expressing joy and thanking the electorate for giving her a huge victory, Jayalalithaa said: “It is a historic win. I assure you that I will work tirelessly to fulfil the voters’ expectations and needs.”
“Out of the total votes polled in the city constituency, a massive 88.43 per cent of the electorate had voted for me, which is historic,” she added.
Jayalalithaa had to fulfill the constitutional requirement of getting elected as an MlA within six months of becoming Chief Minister. AIADMK’s P Vetrivel had vacated the seat to enable her to seek re-election.
Jayalalithaa polled 1,60,432 votes out of the total 1,81,420 votes. All major Opposition parties, including the DMK, the DMDK, the BJP, the Congress, the PMK and the MDMK, had boycotted the election alleging misuse of official machinery by the ruling party. It was a one sided match from the word go as her political rivals had nothing to challenge her with. Jayalalithaa herself campaigned for hardly three hours and addressed two public meetings and that too for ten minutes each.
The AIADMK supporters who turned out in thousands in front of Veda Nilayam, Jayalalithaa’s residence at Poes Garden, and the party headquarters started the celebrations from morning itself. Jayalalithaa said the result of the by-poll was the precursor to the Assembly election to be held early next year. Tamil Nadu Assembly election is scheduled for April 2016.
Jayalalithaa had ceased to be the Chief Minister and member of the House on September 27, 2014 following her conviction and sentencing by the Special Court in Bangalore in the Disproportionate Assets case. But she was acquitted of all charges by the Karnataka High Court following the appeal filed by her challenging the Special Court’s verdict. The High Court verdict came in the month of May 2015 and she was sworn in again as Chief Minister on May 23, 2015.
With the declaration of the by-poll result from RK Nagar on Tuesday, a chapter of the Disproportionate Asset case against Jayalalithaa has come to an end. The stage has moved to the Supreme Court with the Karnataka Government filing a Special leave Petition challenging the High Court verdict acquitting the AIADMK chief of all charges.