For the ruling AIADMK which hauled 37 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, results have been nothing short of disappointing this time around. As of 1.45 pm, the party is leading in just one seat in Tamil Nadu. Anbumani Ramadoss of the PMK - part of the AIADMK-BJP alliance - has been oscillating between leading and trailing.
The 'mega alliance' of AIADMK, BJP, PMK, DMDK and others has clearly failed in the state. The DMK and its allies, meanwhile, is leading in all seats it contested, barring Theni, where Congress’ EVKS Elangovan is trailing.
Under former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's leadership, AIADMK fought solo in the previous General Elections. This time around, however, the PMK, a party that depends on its Vanniyar vote base and the BJP which is looking to deepen its roots in Tamil Nadu, were roped in to form an alliance. Vijayakanth’s DMDK too had joined the alliance. With DMDK and PMK having secured between 4- 6% votes in past recent elections, the AIADMK and the BJP had hoped that the combined vote share would help them across the state.
The AIADMK is leading in just one seat of Theni, where Deputy Chief Minister O Pannneerselvam’s son P Raveendranath Kumar is contesting from. Former Union Minister Anbumani Ramadoss is presently trailing by 1446 votes, against DMK's Senthil Kumar in Dharmapuri.
The DMK led by MK Stalin meanwhile will see an individual haul of 19 seats this election, a huge jump from the previous polls, where it could not win even a single seat. Their ally Congress is leading in eight out of nine seats that it contested in the state. VCK is leading in Chidambaram, where party chief Thirumavalavan contested. However, it is a close fight with leads oscilatting between Thirumavalavan and AIADMK's Chandrasekar. In Villupuram VCK's Ravikumar, who contested under the DMK’s rising sun symbol, is also leading by a comfortable margin. The CPI and CPI(M) are leading in all the seats they contested from.
A multitude of reasons seem to have impacted the AIADMK- BJP alliance, including the lack of a strong leader like Jayalalithaa and the double anti incumbency that the coalition faces. (anti-incumbency against the state government and the central government).
The exit polls, which had taken into account data from all seven phases, predicted an average of 8 seats for the BJP-AIADMK alliance in Tamil Nadu and 27 for the Congress-DMK alliance. Chief Minister Edappadi Palanisami had expressed confidence in the alliance arithmetic with each party demanding loyalty from different groups of voters.