Karunanidhi has not lost an election since 1957.
The much awaited results for the 2016 Tamil Nadu assembly elections were announced on Thursday. J Jayalalithaa's AIADMK emerged victorious despite tough competition from the DMK.
Howver, DMK supremo M Karunanidhi won the Thiruvarur constituency with a margin of 68,366 votes. The 93-year-old leader bagged 1,21,473 votes and defeated AIADMK nominee R Pannerselvam, who managed only 53,107 votes. This is the highest margin by which he leader has ever won. Karunanidhi has not lost any election since 1957.
When the elections were announced in the state, speculation was rife that the leader might not contest. Karunanidhi then announced that he would contest from his hometown of Thiruvarur. He had contested from the constituency in the 2011 assembly elections where he won by a margin of 50,249 votes.
In 2006, Mr Karunanidhi had won in Chepauk by 8,522 votes. The low margin reportedly led him to shift base to his ancestral home in Thiruvarur.
The leader also began his campaign for the assembly elections from Thiruvarur this time and then toured across Tamil Nadu. A customised van was arranged for the wheelchair-bound leader which he used to campaign. In one his speeches at Thiruvarur, Karunanidhi urged people to vote him to power one last time.
The campaign at Tiruvarur also saw his son MK Stalin hold rallies. In one of the meetings, Stalin urged the voters to vote for his father. He asked them to make him win by 200% percent and a record margin, which is now reflected in the result that was announced at Tiruvarur.
Although DMK could not wrest power, it is clearly on the way to becoming a robust Opposition party winning a handsome number of seats. Analysts now believe that if the DMK had projected Stalin as the chief ministerial face instead of his father, the election verdict could probably have been different.
MK Stalin had extensively toured Tamil Nadu, addressed hundreds of public meetings and rallies and even expressed regret for some "mistakes" that happened during the previous DMK tenure and assured people that such things will not be repeated if his party was voted back to power.
(With PTI inputs)
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