RK Nagar Bypoll: Dinakaran ahead, ruling AIADMK trailing, DMK in third spot
Sidelined AIADMK leader TTV Dinakaran's margin further widened over that of his rivals by 8,000 plus votes at the end of third round of counting of votes for the RK Nagar bypoll here.
By : migrator
Update: 2017-12-24 11:49 GMT
Chennai
Fighting as an independent, Dinakaran bagged 15,868 votes at the end of the second round. He registered 5082 votes in the second and 5,339 in the first.
Ruling AIADMK's E Madhusudanan bagged 7033 votes at the end of round three.
Led by Chief Minister K Palaniswami and his deputy O Panneerselvam, several ministers had campaigned relentlessly for the party nominee Madhusudanan.
The DMK, which aggressively fought the bypoll with the support of an array of parties, including allies Congress and friendly parties, including the Left got 3,691 votes at the end of the third round.
The main opposition party's candidate N Maruthu Ganesh got 1,181 and 1,142 votes respectively in first and second rounds. Counting for third round is on out of a total of 19 scheduled rounds.
With early trends indicating a comfortable win for him, Dinakaran told reporters in Madurai that it reflected people wanting a change of regime.
"We are the true AIADMK," he said and claimed that the Palaniswami government will "end in three months".
The trends triggered a debate in social media over the possibility of a patch-up between the ruling AIADMK and the rival faction led by him.
The rival leader has claimed that people have "decided" that he would succeed Amma in the constituency represented twice by her.
Jayalalithaa had won from RK Nagar in the 2015 bypoll and the 2016 assembly general election.
Meanwhile, police and Central armed police forces personnel on security duty brought in more restrictions in and around the counting centre at Queen Mary's College following a disruption.
Counting of votes suffered a temporary disruption following an alleged altercation between supporters of Dinakaran and AIADMK's E Madhusudhanan.
Followers of Dinakaran, buoyed by the comfortable lead broke into celebratory mode and began distributing sweets and bursting crackers even as they continued to swarm the counting centre shouting slogans hailing their leader.
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