MADURAI: Premalatha Vijayakanth, DMDK general secretary, alleged irregularities in the counting of votes polled in Virudhunagar Lok Sabha constituency, from where her son V Vijaya Prabhakaran, lost a closely contested battle against B Manickam Tagore of Congress, on his debut. However, Tagore on Thursday called those allegations as ridiculous.
Until the last round of the contest, Vijaya Prabhakaran, who contested on behalf of the DMDK, an ally of AIADMK, was present along with his supporters at the counting centre.
When contacted, Manickam Tagore said his electoral victory was declared officially and added that ‘no matter what the DMDK leader claims, let them do as they wish.’
A total of 27 contestants entered the fray including nominees of some major and registered parties besides independent candidates.
But, the contest was open only between Tagore and Prabhakaran, right from the beginning.
After 24 rounds of counting of votes polled in EVMs and postal ballots, which lasted late into night, Tagore secured 3,85,256 votes defeating Prabhakaran, who got 3,80,877 votes, by a slender margin of 4,379 votes.
The victorious candidate, Tagore later received the victory certificate from the Returning Officer, sources said.