Tamil Nadu: Late Opposition surge but by then Amma welfare net had hauled in rich catch

But the win was also tempered by the 98 seats that the DMK-Congress reeled in, making the alliance a significant Opposition in the assembly.

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The big surprise, though, was the miserable performance of the other parties, with Vijayakanth’s DMDK, which had emerged as a “Third Front” in alliance with smaller parties, and S Ramadoss’s caste-based PMK failing to win any seats. The DMDK had 48 MLAs in the previous assembly and the PMK three.

Recalling 1984, when AIADMK claimed 56 per cent of the seats by screening MGR’s images in cinema halls across the state, Jayalalithaa thanked the people for voting her party back to power.

READ | Jayalalithaa bucks anti-incumbency trend, writing on wall at her huge rallies

“I am overwhelmed by the resounding victory that the people of Tamil Nadu have given us. My party and I are indebted to the people of Tamil Nadu for giving this historic victory,” she said.

Elections 2016: Three Reasons Behind Each State Victory

As the AIADMK pulled away from the competition, dozens of party leaders, top police officers and bureaucrats were seen making a beeline for Jayalalithaa’s Poes Garden residence in Chennai to wish her. Many were seen touching her feet as she sat on a chair on the verandah.

The AIADMK swept most of the seats in several pockets, including the politically sensitive Kongu belt comprising six districts with a sizeable share of OBC-Gounder votes. But flood-affected Chennai and a few other seats in northern Tamil Nadu and Kanyakumari, a traditional Congress bastion, favoured the DMK-Congress alliance.

Read | The Jayalalithaa model works: Power to the people and freebies for the poor 

With defeat staring at his face, DMK party treasurer M K Stalin’s convoy was seen leaving the party headquarters compound in Chennai through the back gate. DMK leader Dayanidhi Maran said they would be “a powerful opposition” in the assembly. “The people’s mandate was DMK. The people wanted ‘Kalaignar’ (M Karunanidhi) to become the Chief Minister. But the money power… some people sold their conscience to the devil,” he said.

Election Results 2016: Editors Analyse How The Parties Fared

Vijayakanth’s DMDK-led coalition, PWF, in alliance with Tamil Manila Congress (TMC) led by G K Vasan, who defected from the Congress in 2014, suffered a complete washout. Top leaders of the other political force, PMK, including former Union minister Anbumani Ramadoss, also failed to win.

Vijayakanth was trailing from the third round itself, while the leader of Dalit party VCK, Thol Thirumavalavan, fell at the last round. Neither CPI nor CPI(M) candidates managed to win a single seat.

Political observers attributed the DMK’s defeat to the major corruption scandals that marred its previous rule, the 2G scam at the Centre, and thousands of alleged land-grabbing cases in the state. Yet, the clean image of Stalin did help the DMK improve its electoral status. The party was handed a humiliating defeat in 2011, winning just 23 seats, and was washed out in the local body elections and the 2014 Lok Sabha polls that followed.

While the BJP’s heavyweight candidates — state chief Tamilisai Soundararajan and national secretary H Raja — were pushed to third or fourth places in Chennai, the party failed to win in Coimbatore South, Vedaranayam and Hosur constituencies, where it had hoped to make a mark.

The BJP also faced a washout in Kanyakumari, the base of Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan and state BJP chief Tamilisai Soundararajan, where the Congress revived its fortunes, despite multiple rallies in the region being addressed by BJP chief Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

R Mutharasan, state secretary of CPI, said money power helped AIADMK and DMK wash out smaller parties. “The massive crowds at our meetings scared them in the initial campaign rounds and they changed their strategies to defeat us. We will continue to work together to strengthen the People’s Welfare Front (PWF), the third front,” he said.

Despite doubts being raised by experts over the economic and political viability of Jayalalithaa’s governance and policies, the promises unveiled in the AIADMK’s manifesto for the common man, including a 50 per cent discount for scooters purchased by women, and notable improvements in the state’s power scenario appeared to have worked. A better law-and-order situation was another reason being attributed to Jayalalithaa’s victory.