Assembly Bypolls : Whistle blows louder as ruling TVK wins both the seats, DMK finishes second ahead of AIADMK

Chennai, Oct 9 (UNI) The sound of Whistle (TVK poll symbol) blew louder as the ruling TVK of Vijay won both the Reserved Assembly seats of Madurantakam and Dharapuram, with its candidates -- both former AIADMK MLAs -- defeating their nearest DMK rivals by a good margin on Friday.

The victory has improved the TVK's strength in the 234-member House to 109. It had won 108 in April polls, but Chief Minister Vijay, who got elected from two seats, vacated the Tiruchy East seat and retained Perambur in Chennai, reducing it to 107. When the counting of votes polled in October 6 by-elections was taken at 0800 hrs in the morning, it turned out to be a one-horse race in Madurantakam, while the TVK led in the first two rounds in Dharapuram, stuttered in the next three as AIADMK nosed ahead, before wresting the lead in the sixth round and kept consolidating it till the end, to emerge deserving winners in both the seats.

Reports from Madurantakam said, at the end of of counting, Ms.K.Maragatham Kumaravel of TVK won by a margin of nearly 20,000 votes over her nearest DMK rival I.Paranthaman. She polled 72,139 votes, as against 52,008 by the DMk nomineee. AIADMK, which had held the seat, finished third with 46,370 votes, followed by Naam Tamizhar Katchi's K.Janakiraman and CPI-M's P.Suganthi who bagged 2,247 and 1,744 votes respectively. In Dharapuram, the TVK faced a mild stutter after initial leads, and recovered in the sixth round. Since then there was no looking back for TVK's P.Sathyabama, whose lead kept swelling with every passing round, when in a key twist, the battle for the second spot intensified. The AIADMK which has been giving a tough fight to TVK till the 11th round, fell back to third spot and the main Opposition DMK jumped to the second position and retained that position till the end. Sathyabama won by a margin of over 9,400 votes, polling 66,841 votes when compared to DMK's S.Suganya 57,370. AIADMK's K.Bhanumathi finished third with 45,280 votes followed by NTK's M.Karthika and P.Lakshmanan of CPI, who finished far behind securing 5,268 and 1,157 votes respectively.

The NTK and the candidates of the CPI and CPI-M, which contested alone despite offering outside support to the TVK regime, forfeited their deposits in both the constituencies. Yet another plus for TVK was that it has improved its numbers in both the seats. It secured 46,438 votes in the 2026 April General elections in Dharapuram and finished third. Now it has crossed that mark securing 66,841 votes. It also got higher share of votes in Madurantakam imrpoving it from 62,090 to 72,139.

TVK candidates celebrated the twin success at the party headquarters at Panayur on the ECR by bursting crackers, distributing sweets and dancing to the beating of drums. Similar celebrations were also witnessed in the two constituencies. The election was seen as a litmus test for the nearly five-month-old ruling party, which was being targetted by the entire Opposition.

They accused the TVK of failing on multiple fronts, not honouring poll promises and alleged that it has lost the people's confidence and that it would be reflected in the bypolls. This election for the two seats was seen as a forerunner for the bypolls to five more seats as the victories in Madurantakam and Dharapuram served a major moralebooster for the ensuing electoral battles.

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