ERODE: The DMK won the Erode Lok Sabha Constituency with a hefty margin of 236,566 votes. At the end of 23 rounds of counting, DMK candidate KE Prakash secured 562,339 votes, whereas AIADMK candidate ‘Aatral’ Ashok Kumar who was in the second spot bagged 325,773 votes.
Prakash took the lead from the beginning as the postal votes were counted first soon after the counting started at 8 am at the Government Engineering College at Chithode.
The sealed postal ballot boxes kept at the Erode District Collector’s office were brought to the counting centre under tight security. The boxes were opened in the presence of the candidates and their agents in the presence of District Collector and Returning Officer (RO) Raja Gopal Sunkara and monitoring officers Rajeev Ranjan Meena and Gayathri N Naik who are tasked with the supervision of the counting of votes.
Then the counting of the votes recorded in the electronic voting machines started at 8.30 am. In the first round, Prakash maintained his lead with 29,344 votes. At the same time, AIADMK candidate Aatral Ashok Kumar secured 16,558 votes. P Vijayakumar, who is the candidate of BJP ally Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC), polled 4,473 votes and NTK’s M Karmegan recorded 4,103 votes. At this stage, NOTA was ahead of all other candidates with 758 votes.
In the second round, NTK pipped TMC even as the DMK and the AIADMK remained at the first two positions. The NTK candidate secured 8,451 votes and TMC’s Vijayakumar 7,825 votes at this stage. There was no change in the position of the candidates thereafter. The NTK candidate finally bagged 82,796 votes and TMC candidate 77,911.
There was a delay in the counting of votes between the second and third rounds. RO Raja Gopal Sunkara told media persons “The delay was due to faults in two voting machines from the Dharapuram Assembly constituency. The faults were fixed as per the norms and the counting continued without any disruption.”
Meanwhile, DMK functionaries and cadres celebrated their party’s stupendous performance in Tamil Nadu by distributing sweets and bursting crackers.
The Erode Lok Sabha constituency consists of Erode East, Erode West, Modakurichi, Kumarapalayam (Namakkal district), Dharapuram (Tiruppur district), Kangeyam (Tiruppur district) assembly segments. The constituency recorded a 70.59% voter turnout on election day, April 19.
Out of the 15,28,758 voters, 7,40,495 are male, 7,88,078 females and 185 trans-persons. The number of votes cast and the number of polling centres were 10,86,287 and 1,688 respectively.
