AIADMK secures 40.8 pc votes; DMK-Cong close behind at 38 pc

AIADMK which won the May 16 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu has bettered its vote share marginally at 40.8 per cent but DMK too improved its pie significantly compared to the previous polls.
Actor Vijayakant's DMDK, which boasted of around eight percent vote share in the previous hustings, saw a dip in its fortunes by about five per cent.
Elections were held only to 232 out of the 234 Assembly constituencies since the Election Commission has deferred polling in Aravakurichi and Thanjavur over allegations of bribing voters.
With the results declared in 220 seats, AIADMK clocked a 40.8 per cent vote share, a marginal increase from the 39.08 per cent in 2011, despite contesting without major allies.

The party had contested 165 seats in 2011 and won 150 of them. In the current election, it tried its luck from 227 constituencies. Even in the seven seats allotted to alliance parties, they contested on the AIADMK's Two Leaves symbol.
DMK, reduced to 23 seats in 2011 with a vote share of 22.38 percent, made significant gains this time.

The party polled 31.6 per cent of the total votes as it won 81 seats and was leading in another 8.
Actor-politician Vijayakant's DMDK, often touted as 'dark horse' or 'vote-splitter', suffered heavy losses, both in terms of seats and vote-share despite contesting from more number of seats.

As an AIADMK ally, the party contested from 41 seats in 2011 and won 29, while securing a vote share of 7.88 percent.
However, 2016 turned out to be disastrous for the party as it not only drew a blank but also saw its vote share plummeting to about 2.4 per cent.
Congress, CPI(M) and CPI also saw their vote share dip.
Congress, which bettered its tally of five in 2011 by winning eight seats today, witnessed a decline in its vote share from 9.30 per cent in 2011 to 6.4 per cent now.
Both CPI(M) and CPI drew a blank and their vote share also decreased, from 2.41 per cent and 1.97 percent, to 0.8 per cent and 0.7 per cent, respectively, this time.

BJP, which polled 2.24 per cent votes in 2011, got 2.8 per cent this time.