CHENNAI: Early trends in the vote-counting process across 39 seats in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry showed the DMK-led India National Democratic Alliance (INDIA) bloc leading in 35 seats while the AIADMK-led alliance was leading in three seats and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in one seat.
AIADMK candidates P Arunachalam (Namakkal) and R Kumaraguru (Kallakuruchi) and its ally DMDK's candidate V Vijay Prabhakaran (Virudhunagar) were in the lead during early hours of counting while BJP ally PMK's candidate for Dharmapuri Sowmiya Anbumani was leading against DMK candidate A Mani.
Although AIADMK candidates seemed to be in the second spot in many of the constituencies in early hours of counting, state BJP chief and Coimbatore candidate K Annamalai and the party’s candidate for Chennai Central Vinoj P Selvam moved upwards to claim a distant second spot after pushing the respective AIADMK candidates to third position.
Interestingly, BJP candidate for Tirunvelvi Nainar Nagendran, who was leading in the early hours of counting, slipped to the second spot while Congress candidate C Robert Bruce moved up to the lead.