TIRUNELVELI: The ruling AIADMK made a giant kill in the by-polls to the Sankarankoil (Reserved) Assembly constituency on Wednesday with Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s handpicked candidate S Muthuselvi making easy mincemeat of her rivals. In the end, Muthuselvi’s massive victory margin of 68,757 votes was higher than the collective votes polled by candidates of a fragmented opposition comprising the DMK, MDMK and DMDK. None of the dozen losing candidates retained their deposits making Jayalalithaa’s words during the campaign prophetic. This is the sixth consecutive victory for the AIADMK in the southern constituency since 1991 when Jayalalithaa had first assumed oath as CM. The party had also won the seat twice in the eighties. Jubilant AIADMK cadre went on a wild celebration shortly after counting of votes polled in the March 18 by-elections commenced in the morning as Muthuselvi established an unassailable lead over her rivals from Round One. The bypoll was necessitated following the demise of four-time legislator and Minister Karuppasamy in October last year. Of the 2,06,087 votes polled, the ruling party bagged 1,59,772 votes including the 13 registered postal votes. Muthuselvi’s immediate rival J Jawahar Suryakumar of the DMK came a distant second polling just 26, 220 votes. The MDMK’s T Sadhan Thirumalaikumar, who was hoping to bank on the fact that his party leader Vaiko was the ‘son of the soil’ in Sankarankoil, ended up third with 20,678 votes. K Muthu Kumar, fielded by Vijaykanth’s DMDK, was pushed to the fourth slot with just 12,144 votes. The BJP, the only national party in the fray, came a cropper with its candidate L Murugan bagging a mere 1,633 votes. In all the 18 rounds of counting of votes at the Veerasamy Chettiar Engineering College, Puliyangudi, the AIADMK was clearly on top. Although the DMK candidate overall polled the second highest votes; in the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 17th rounds, the MDMK bagged second place.
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