Chennai: Barely five months after being routed in the Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu, the ruling AIADMK, sans a charismatic leader at the helm, made a strong comeback on Thursday wresting the Vikravandi and Nanguneri Assembly constituencies from the DMK and Congress respectively with comfortable victory margins in the by-polls.
In neighbouring Puducherrry though, the ruling Congress retained the Kamaraj Nagar seat. While in Vikravandi in north Tamil Nadu, the party candidate M R Muthamizhselvan won by a margin of 44,924 votes over his nearest DMK rival; in Nanguneri in the south, AIADMK's Narayanan defeated the Congress candidate by a margin of 33,445 votes.
The two seats had fallen vacant following the death of DMK legislator Rathamani in Vikravandi and resignation of Congress' H Vasanthakumar in Nanguneri after he was elected to Parliament from Kanyakumari this summer.
Just in May the candidates of the Secular Progressive Alliance comprising the DMK, Congress, Left and others had won in 37 Lok Sabha constituencies. Significantly then the margin of victory in many constituencies were by over three or four lakh votes.