Riveting show by AIADMK, rout for DMK-Cong

Coming up with a superlative show in the hustings, ruling AIADMK bagged 37 of the 39 Lok Sabha seats at stake, devastating DMK, Congress and six-party BJP alliance in Tamil Nadu and turning a new leaf in the state's political landscape by ending the bipolar polity.
The never before performance, a clean sweep by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa-headed party coming on a day when she completed three years in office, decimated her opponents, particularly arch rival DMK and put her onto the driver's seat for the assembly polls due exactly two years from now.
BJP and its ally PMK notched up consolation wins in one constituency each while all others including DMK, Congress, Left parties and AAP bit the dust as the votes polled in the April 24 elections were counted today.

The massive win came as a replication of AIADMK's landslide in the 2011 Assembly elections in which it won 151 seats in the 234-member House, dethroning DMK, which the electorate rejected in the wake of scams including 2G that hit the party.
The outcome has come as a stunning blow to 89-year-old M Karunanidhi-led DMK, already rattled by war among his two sons -- M K Alagiri and M K Stalin -- and its attempts to resurrect its sagging image in this election were brought to a nought by the electorate.
For the first time after a gap of 23 years, DMK has been blanked in Tamil Nadu and similar is the fate of Congress for which had encountered a similar fate in 1998.

History repeated itself albeit in a different way with DMK drawing a blank exactly a decade after AIADMK faced a similar ignominy in the 2004 general elections.

The "Amma" wave spread by Jayalalithaa swept away the BJP-led six party alliance that comprised among others cine star headed Vijayakant, Vanniyar-backed PMK and Vaiko's MDMK.
The only solace for the saffron party, which stormed to power at the Centre with a tsunami of support across the country, was that it won from Kanyakumari, besides another by its ally PMK (Dharmapuri).
Popular among those who lost out in the hustings are DMK's 2G scam accused Dayanidhi Maran (Central Chennai) and A Raja (Nilgiris-SC) and T R Baalu (Thanjavur), Manishankar Aiyar and Karti Chidambaram (Congress), the last two finishing fourth.