2024 Tamil Nadu Lok Sabha elections results: DMK leads in strongholds of Chennai South, Central and North
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Thamizhachi had won with a 50.2% vote share.
Thamizhachi Thangapandian, Dayanidhi Maran and Kalanidhi Veeraswamy
CHENNAI: Going by preliminary figures from the vote-counting process in the Lok Sabha elections, the DMK's Thamizhachi Thangapandian, Dayanidhi Maran and Kalanidhi Veeraswamy are leading from the party's traditional strongholds of Chennai South, Chennai Central and Chennai North Lok Sabha constituencies, respectively.
In Chennai South, Thamizhachi Thangapandian is confident of securing a third term while the saffron party is banking on the sizeable number of Brahmins and upwardly-mobile population in the DMK bastion to give former Telangana Governor and BJP’s contender, Tamilisai Soundararajan a fillip. Another 'Tamil' whose luck will be tested today is Tamil Selvi from the Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK).
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Thamizhachi had won with a 50.2% vote share.
Former Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran also seems to be coasting towards victory in Chennai Central - his fourth after 2004, 2009, and 2019. The son of former Union Minister Murasoli Maran and brother of Kalanithi Maran, founder-chairman of Sun Group, had secured a 57.36% vote share. Since 1996, the DMK has won all the elections here — the first three by Murasoli Maran and another three by Dayanidhi. In 2014 alone, the AIADMK swept the polls due to anti-incumbency.
Civic issues dominate the six assembly segments in the constituency --- Villivakkam, Anna Nagar, Egmore (SC), Harbour, Chepauk- Triplicane and Thousand Lights.
The electorate here is a mix of working-class in the north and upwardly mobile in the south with a significant population of Muslims and Scheduled Castes.
Chennai South parliamentary constituency includes six assembly segments: Virugambakkam, Saidapet, T Nagar, Mylapore, Velachery, and Sholinganallur.
Meanwhile, in Chennai North, Kalanidhi Veeraswamy, son of former minister Arcot N. Veeraswami, too is hopeful of another term, boosted by his 61.85% vote share in 2019. Although industrial pollution and floods are major poll issues for the largely working-class population in the constituency, which comprises the assembly segments of Thiruvottiyur, Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar, Perambur, Kolathur, Thiru-Vi-Ka-Nagar, and Royapuram.