With 63.22% of votes, the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) Anniyur Siva (a) Sivashanmugam A won the Vikravandi Assembly seat. He managed to garner 1,24,053 votes. Anbumani Ramadoss’s Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) candidate Anbumani C secured 56,296 votes, that is, 28.69% and finished second.
Seeman’s Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) candidate Abinaya K finished third with 10,602 votes that constituted 5.4% vote share, up from 4.25% in 2021 Assembly Elections.
Notably, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) did not compete in the bye-election.
The Vikravandi seat remained vacant since April 2024, following the death of DMK’s Pugazhenthi, who had won against the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) candidate R Muthamilselvan in the Assembly polls in 2021.
In June, AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami had announced that the party will not compete for the seat. Edappadi said that the ruling DMK’s cadres and Ministers would misuse the state machinery and that they wouldn’t allow for a free and fair bye-election. He added that the party will commit “atrocities and irregularities”. He drew parallels to the Erode (East) bye-polls that took place in 2022 and said that the ruling DMK had “intimidated” voters there.
In the 2021 Assembly elections, the Vikravandi witnessed a neck and neck battle between the DMK and the AIADMK. The latter finished second with 43.47% votes while the former came first with 48.42% votes, behind by 5.5%, that is, roughly 9,500 votes.
At the time, the PMK was in alliance with the AIADMK. However, in 2023, the AIADMK walked out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the BJP.
It was widely speculated that the AIADMK’s vote share in the bye-polls would transfer to the Vanniyar caste party PMK who are in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Vikravandi in Tamil Nadu is the only Assembly constituency from the five southern states that went to polls on July 10.