Minister for Power R. Viswanathan tasted his first defeat in his political career in Athoor constituency, foreign soil to him, as DMK candidate and former Revenue Minister I. Periyasamy won the seat by a whopping margin of 27,147 votes in the assembly election here on Thursday. At the same time, the AIADMK has lost Natham constituency also.
Of 2,29,252 votes polled, Mr. Periyasamy garnered 1,21,738 votes and Mr. Viswanathan got 94,591 votes. All other eighteen candidates including CPI(M), DMDK, BJP, AIFB and PMK lost their deposits.
Periyasamy began his account with a comfortable margin in round one.
Till the end, Viswanathan could not supersede him. Mr. Periyasamy managed to maintain his first place till the last round.
In subsequent rounds, margin between them was widening. DMK was very weak in Reddiyarchatram. But Periyasamy had managed to garner more votes than Viswanathan in that union also.
Villages on hilly region where AIADMK was strong, helped Viswanathan save his face in the foreign soil.
Viswanathan had never faced defeat in any of his previous elections since 1998 in Natham.
He had retained the seat in all assembly elections held between 2001 and 2011, converting Natham into a bastion of AIADMK, which was earlier Congress’ till 1996.
Retains fort
At the same time, Mr. Periyasamy became the MLA for the fourth time by retaining his DMK fort.
In a dramatic move, DMK candidate M.A. Andiambalam won in Natham defeating his AIADMK candidate S. Shajahan by a slender margin of 2,110 votes.
Till the end of 20 rounds, AIADMK was maintaining the lead and the difference between the DMK and AIADMK was hovering between 2,000 to 3,500 votes. But in the last three rounds, position turned upside down. Mr. Ambalam got 800 votes more than AIADMK and the margin rose to 2,110 in the last round.
With unexpected defeat in Natham, AIADMK won three constituencies leaving four to DMK.
