DMK with 52 per cent overtakes AIADMK’s 44 per cent vote share in 2014

Ironically, the Indian National Congress (INC) and Left parties may have been decimated in their established battlegrounds in north India, but the parties have registered a steep rise in their vote share in Tamil Nadu. 

Congress triples share In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Congress contested in all the 39 constituencies in the state alone and only managed to secure 4.32 per cent votes. However, as per the Election Commission data, the national party had secured 12.76 per cent votes in the state. 

The Congress party had secured more than 54 lakh votes from the nine seats it had contested as a part of DMK alliance. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India have secured 2.40 and 2.43 per cent votes respectively. 

In 2014, both the Left parties had forged a Left alliance and contested in 9 and 8 constituencies respectively. In that election, both the left parties had registered a mere 0.54 vote share each without winning a seat.  

The earlier vote share is five times lesser than the votes they had managed to get in 2019. Apart from winning in all the 23 seats it had contested, the DMK has increased its vote share to 32.76 per cent from 23.61 per cent in 2014. 

Overall, the DMK alliance has secured more than 52 per cent of the 4.18 crore votes polled in the state. While other parties in the AIADMK spearheaded alliance, including the alliance leader, have witnessed a slump in their vote share, PMK has managed to register a slight improvement.  

Contesting in seven constituencies, PMK has secured 5.42 per cent votes against 4.32 per cent that the party had registered in 2014. Interestingly, all the parties in the DMK alliance have managed to increase their vote share in this elections, except the VCK as it has recorded a slump of 0.30 per cent by securing 1.11 per cent votes. 

However, the VCK, which had failed to win in two seats it had contested in 2014, has won in Chidambaram, where party leader Thol Thirumavalavan won by a slender margin. Even though party member D Ravikumar won in Villupuram seat, his votes would be counted in DMK’s share as he had contested in DMK’s symbol. 

Meanwhile, the AIADMK’s vote share has gone down to 18.53 per cent from whopping 44.34 per cent that the party had secured in 2014. The EC numbers suggest that the Tamil Nadu voters were more decisive in 2019 that they were in 2014. In 2014, 1.44 per cent voters had voted for NOTA, whereas, only 1.28 per cent of voters opted for NOTA. 

New entrants such as Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam and Seeman’s Naam Tamilar Katchi have relatively fared well by securing more than 3.50 per cent votes from all the seats they have contested. NTK, which recorded just more than 1 per cent in the previous Assembly elections had managed to increase their vote bank.