Jayalalithaa takes massive lead as first round of counting ends for RK Nagar bypolls

Chennai: Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa took a massive lead over her nearest rival, CPI’s C Mahendran at the end of first round of vote count on Tuesday in the Radhakrishnan Nagar assembly seat by-election. [caption id=“attachment_2318918” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  J Jayalalithaa. AFP[/caption] At the end of the first round, Jayalalithaa got 9,562 votes (including postal votes), while Communist Party of India’s (CPI) candidate C Mahendran secured 930 votes. Social activist KR Ramaswamy, popularly known as ‘Traffic Ramaswamy’, got 289 votes. Out of the 11,188 votes counted in the first round, 174 voters opted for NOTA (none of the above). Tamil Nadu chief minister and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa is surging ahead of her CPI rival in the RK Nagar constituency, bypoll for which was held on June 27. After three rounds of counting that began at 8am, Jayalalithaa polled 30,033 votes as compared to 2287 of CPI’s C Mahendran. With trends pointing out a clear headway for Jayalalithaa, AIADMK cadres and supporters have gone into a celebratory mode. Some workers were seen distributing sweets and dancing near her Poes garden residence in Chennai. Jayalalithaa and Mahendran are facing each other in the North Chennai constituency even as 26 other candidates including social activist, ‘Traffic’ Ramaswamy alias KR Ramaswamy are in the fray. The by-election was necessitated following AIADMK’s P Vetrivel vacating the seat in May, apparently to enable Jayalalithaa seek re-election. She has to fulfill the constitutional requirement of getting elected as MLA within six months of becoming the chief minister. She returned to the top post on May 23 after being acquitted in a disproportionate assets case by the Karnataka high court. She had been convicted in the case in September last by a trial court in Bengaluru. Meanwhile in Kerala, Congress candidate KS Sabarinadhan notched up an emphatic win in the Aruvikkara by-election, defeating CPI(M)’s M Vijayakumar, a former minister, by more than 10,000 votes. IANS and PTI