Lok Sabha poll results: Annamalai’s home turf Aravakurichi favours Congress' Jothimani with 4-fold votes

TIRUCHY: Despite being the home turf of BJP state president K Annamalai, Aravakurichi Assembly segment voters gave a thumping four-fold vote share to Congress candidate in Karur seat.

Karur was in news ever since the election was announced. Candidate selection to campaigning too became very sensitive as S Jothimani of Congress, negotiated to get the seat despite there being lobbying from DMK. This resulted in hesitation among the DMK cadre to go ahead with dedicated poll work for her.

The segment comprises Vedasandur, Aravakurichi, Karur, Krishnarayapuram, Manapparai and Viralimalai Assembly seats. Among them, Aravakurichi is the home segment of BJP state president Annamalai who had contested in 2021 Assembly polls and secured 68,553 votes and lost to DMK’s R Elango. This victory was a strategic sketch of minister V Senthilbalaji who was in his hey time and dared Annamalai to win it.

However, this time, there were too many challenges before Jothimani among them, the most annoying one was the absence of Senthilbalaji and the dejection of DMK cadre. This had created a suspicion among the Congress and DMK workers as about the thumping victory for Jothimani. But still, she was successful with securing 5.34 lakh votes among the total of 11.33 lakh votes polled while the BJP candidate VV Senthilnathan, who is also very close to Annamalai could secure 1.02 lakh votes only. Interestingly, Aravakurchi favoured Congress candidate well as she could secure 87,390 votes compared to BJP candidate’s 19,978. It is almost four fold votes more than the BJP candidate.

The BJP workers expected to retain at least 50 per cent of votes that was scored by Annamalai in the Assembly polls that could be calculated to be around 34,000 votes as there was a high decibel campaign by Annamalai himself in the entire Karur segment. All these failed to work out this time too.