Vote share dips for 18 of 21 MPs who contested again

The four-cornered contest in Tamil Nadu among the political formations led by the DMK, the AIADMK, the BJP, and the NTK, which contested alone, in the 2024 Lok Sabha election has resulted in the reduction in vote share of 18 of 21 sitting MPs who tested their electoral fortunes.

In 2019, the DMK-led alliance won in 38 out of 39 seats.

The representatives of 21 of these seats were renominated to contest in the 2024 elections too. Indhiya Jananayaka Katchi founder T.R. Paarivendhar, who contested on the DMK ticket in 2019 from the Perambalur constituency, suffered a massive defeat this time after switching sides to the BJP. He was the lone incumbent MP to have lost in 2024 with a whopping 47.65 percentage point reduction in vote share.

The vote share of four out of five incumbents who were renominated by the Congress also reduced significantly in the range of 7.5 to 15.8 percentage points compared to the 2019 election.

A strong sympathy wave among voters following the death of DMDK founder Vijayakant struck a blow in the vote-share of Congress’s B. Manickam Tagore in Virudhunagar seat where Vijaya Prabhakaran, the late leader’s son, put up a tough fight. Mr. Tagore’s vote share dipped by nearly 7.5 percentage points.

Congress MP S. Jothimani, who faced resistance from a section of the people during her campaign for the Karur seat, witnessed a 15.8 percentage point reduction in vote share compared to the 2019 election.

Karti. P. Chidambaram’s vote share reduced by nearly 11.5 percentage points.

In Chennai North, Villupuram, the Nilgiris, Kancheepuram, Tiruvannamalai and Arakkonam seats, the vote share of the incumbents reduced by over six percentage points.

In Kanniyakumari, Thoothukudi, Ramanathapuram, Madurai, Chidambaram, and Chennai Central, the incumbents retained, with negligible variations, the vote share that they secured in 2019.