DMK leads Opposition alliance sweep in Tamil Nadu, AIADMK gets just one seat

Election Results 2019 LIVE Updates

The DMK’s victory gave allies CPI(M) and CPI also two seats each. Dalit party VCK also seemed on way to bag a couple, with party chief Thol Thirumavalavan enjoying a thin lead over his AIADMK rival on Chidambaram seat. Caste polarisation expected through the alliance of PMK and speculated influence of the AIADMK among powerful OBC communities such as Gounders and Thevars proved wrong as the DMK alliance won several such strongholds — Salem, the native place of Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, and Dharmapuri, a PMK stronghold, among others.

The DMK’s sweep in the Lok Sabha polls was not only a personal victory for party chief M K Stalin after the death of his father and party patriarch M Karunanidhi, but also marks his emergence as a prominent regional leader from South India. This is significant since two prominent anti-NDA leaders in the region – Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan and outgoing Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu – suffered massive defeats in their states.  Lok Sabha elections results 2019: Full list of winners state-wise

The success also comes after a long dry spell, during which DMK tasted defeat in successive Assembly elections in 2011 and 2016, and drew a blank in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

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As the results emerged on Thursday, Stalin chose to stay away from early comments. Top DMK leaders also did not comment about the victory.

DMK veterans who had lost in 2014, after top party leaders were accused of corruption during the UPA-II regime, managed to make a comeback – A Raja, Dayanidhi Maran, and others such as T R Baalu and Kanimozhi, party chief M K Stalin’s stepsister who faced an election for the first time, among others.

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A senior DMK leader said the massive victory in Lok Sabha and a decent performance in Assembly bypolls will help the party in the upcoming local body and Assembly polls. Another former minister said the presence of smaller parties such as T T V Dhinakaran’s AMMK and Kamal Haasan’s MNM, which were expected to cut into DMK votes, as they also banked on the anti-AIADMK and anti-BJP sentiments, in fact impacted the AIADMK.