Jayalalithaa wins election

CHENNAI: The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) chief and Chief Minister of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa scored a landslide victory on Tuesday winning by a record margin of over 1.5 lakh votes, as ruling parties won all the six seats where by-elections were held in five states which also included south Indian state Kerala and central Indian state Madhya Pradesh.
With her victory a foregone conclusion, Jayalalithaa won the R K Nagar seat in Chennai by a margin of 1,50,722 votes trouncing her nearest Communist Party of India (CPI) rival C Mahendran who forfeited his deposit like other contestants.
In a shot in the arm for the United Democratic Front (UDF) government in Kerala ahead of assembly polls next year, K S Sabarinadhan of Congress won from Aruvikkara in Thiruvananthapuram by a margin of 10,128 votes defeating his nearest Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) rival M Vijayakumar of the Left Democratic Front (LDF). BJP retained Garoth Assembly seat in MP’s Mandsaur district albeit with a reduced margin than in the 2013 Assembly polls.
The Congress, however, termed BJP’s win with a lower margin than earlier as a “moral defeat” for the ruling party.
Expressing joy and thanking the electorate for giving her a huge victory, Jayalalithaa said “it is a historic win, I assure that I will tirelessly work to fulfill the voters’ expectations, and needs.”
Out of the total votes polled in the city constituency, a massive 88.43 per cent of the electorate had voted “for me which is historic,” she said.
Jayalalithaa had to fulfil the constitutional requirement of getting elected as MLA within six months of becoming Chief Minister. AIADMK’s P Vetrivel had vacated the seat to enable her to seek re-election.
She returned to the top post on May 23 after being acquitted in a disproportionate assets case by the Karnataka High Court.