Date:12/05/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/05/12/stories/2006051224310300.htm

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Surprises and disappointments mark counting

V.S. Palaniappan

The district provided solace to AIADMK by returning eight of its 10 candidates

Coimbatore: Too many close shaves, swinging fortunes, surprises and disappointments kept the candidates and counting agents on tenterhooks at the counting centre in Coimbatore.

Results from Coimbatore were considered a surprise for the simple reason that the results from the rest of the State were on a different equation. The district provided solace to AIADMK by returning eight out of its 10 candidates and two of the four nominees of its allies.

The AIADMK candidates V. Gopalakrishnan and former Minister P.V. Damodaran lost Coimbatore East and Pongalur seats to the DMK's Pongalur N. Palanisamy and S. Mani respectively.

An AIADMK ally and MDMK nominee S. Duraisamy lost the Tirupur seat to C. Govindasamy of the Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M).

Comfortable margin

The other ally of the AIADMK, Dalit Panthers of India's (DPI) Susi Kalaiarasan lost the Valparai seat to the Congress nominee Kovai Thangam.

The Congress candidate A.S. Maheswari lost Coimbatore West seat to the AIADMK's T. Malaravan.

The MDMK treasurer and nominee for Thondamuthur M. Kannappan romped home by a comfortable margin of nearly 10,000 votes defeating his nearest rival and the Congress candidate S.R. Balasubramoniyan.

Postal ballots

The surprise came when the returning officers declared that the AIADMK-led Democratic People's Front (DPF) candidate for Singanallur R. Chinnasamy (INTUC) had won the seat defeating his rival and the CPI-M candidate A. Soundarrajan by a slender margin of 14 votes.

The counting centre witnessed frayed tempers when Mr. Soundarrajan challenged his defeat by 14 votespointing fingers at reports of the postal ballots in respect of Singanallur constituency getting mixed up with that of Perur Assembly segment.

The supporters of the CPI-M candidate squatted in front of the counting hall and a surcharged atmosphere posed a tough time for the police in defusing the situation.

Mr. Soundarrajan said that he would seek legal recourse.Similarly, there was tension when the returning officer declared the result for the Mettupalayam Assembly segment in which the AIADMK candidate, O.K. Chinnaraj had defeated his nearest rival and B. Arunkumar (DMK) by a margin of 142 votes.

The DMK candidate who was declared defeated by 142 voteschallenged the result stating that close to 450 postal ballots had not been counted.

Both the DPA candidates plan to move the court challenging the declaration of results. In Mettupalayam, the DMK supporters staged a road roko protesting the alleged failure to count the postal ballots.

Former Minister P.V. Damodhiran lost the Pongalur seat to his nearest rival and DMK nominee S. Mani by a thin margin of 53 votes.Ever since the counting began at 8 a.m., there were too many surprises with fortunes of each candidate swinging to the extremes at frequent intervals.

While the first few rounds gave the AIADMK nominees an edge, the trend just got reversed in the subsequent rounds of counting.