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In what the Chief Minister and party leader J Jayalalithaa described as a “historic, unparalleled, unprecedented” victory, the AIADMK swept the 16th Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu, winning 37 of the 39 seats.
Early in the run up to the elections, the party decided to go it alone with the slogan Naarpadhum Namadhae (all the 40 for us), including the single parliamentary seat of Puducherry. The BJP alliance in the State shored up two seats — ally PMK’s Anbumani Ramadoss won the Dharmapuri seat and the BJP’s State President P Radhakrishnan won Kanyakumari.
The AIADMK sweep was unanticipated. Election watchers had predicted that regional issues — particularly the drastic power shortage — would work against it. The DMK and the Vijayakanth-led DMDK drew a blank. The DMK was handicapped by the spectrum scam and the succession squabbles within the family of its leader M Karunanidhi — factors which had led to its fall from power in the 2011 Assembly elections.
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