Tamil Nadu: BJP Set To Lose Its Lone Lok Sabha Seat As Its State Stalwarts Put Up A Poor Show

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to lose its solitary Lok Sabha seat in Tamil Nadu with all its bigwigs contesting the elections being hopelessly placed in the counting of votes so far.

According to the Election Commission website, BJP Tamil Nadu president Tamilisai Soundararajan trailed her primary rival Kanimozhi Karunanidhi by over 3.11 lakh votes. BJP’s national secretary H Raja lagged behind his main rival Karti Chidambaram, son of senior Congress leader and former Union minister P Chidambaram, by over 2.5 lakh votes in Sivaganga constituency.

Another stalwart, Union Minister for Shipping, Pon Radhakrishnan, was second in Kanyakumari constituency with his rival H Vasantha Kumar building a lead of 2.23 lakh votes.

Only Nainar Nagendran, who joined the BJP from AIADMK, seemed to have put up a good performance, though he was trailing by 73,000 votes in Ramanathapuram constituency.

In Coimbatore, senior BJP leader and Coir Board chairman C P Radhakrishnan was second best behind his Communist Party of India-Marxist rival by 1.72 lakh votes.

BJP was hoping to win Coimbatore and Ramanathapuram seats. Overall, the National Democratic Alliance with the All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam as the leading force was ahead in only two of the 38 seats for which elections were held.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and its partners, including the Congress, were leading in the rest. Polling to the Vellore Lok Sabha seat was cancelled after about Rs 10 crore cash was recovered from the premises reportedly owned by DMK candidate Kathir Anand.