No big gift for AMMK in LS or Assembly battle

AMMK, whose candidates contested as an independent with a common symbol “gift box,” was expected to play a spoilsport for the AIADMK, but the votes polled by the party was nothing closer the victory margin of the DMK-led alliance.

After Dhinakaran’s victory in late chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s RK Nagar Assembly seat bypoll, AMMK projected itself as the real “AIADMK” and claimed to have support of her loyal cadre. Huge crowds which gathered for his roadshows across the state was touted as a sign of him weaning successfully away the AIADMK’s support base.

The election results proved once again, after the 2016 Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, that the state politics continues to be a two-horse race and there is no room to a third player. AMMK finished distant third and even finished behind Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam and Seeman’s Naam Tamilar Katchi.

AMMK’s star candidates – Thangatamilselvan (Theni), P Palaniappan (Dharmapuri) and Charubala R Thondaiman (Tiruchy) – in the Lok Sabha seats lost by a huge margin.

Despite the rout, AMMK was able to poll over 90,000 votes in seven Lok Sabha seats in Central and Southern Tamil Nadu. The results show that AMMK was able to lure considerable number of Thevar votes in Southern districts.

In series of tweets, Dhinakaran said that he accepts the people’s verdict bowing his head down. “In the electoral politics, the victory and the loss is natural. Despite several hurdles, I thank the party office-bearers, cadres and those voted for the party in the elections,” he said, asserting that his party will emerge like a phoenix bird with the lessons learnt from the courage of Amma. “We will continue to fight to win over the hearts of Tamil Nadu people and to voice for the state’s rights,” he added.