Chennai: In a major surprise, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin lost Chennai’s Kolathur seat. His son and DMK youth wing leader Udhayanidhi Stalin, however, won the Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni seat, according to Election Commission data Monday.
The results in both Chennai seats was closely watched as a test of the DMK’s hold on urban Tamil Nadu.
The CM, with 74,202 votes, lost to TVK’s V. S. Babu, who polled 82,997 votes. Udhayanidhi won the Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni seat with 62,992 votes, beating his closest rival, Selvam D. of the TVK by over 7,000 votes.
Kolathur has been Stalin’s stronghold for four decades. In the 2021 assembly election, the chief minister won the seat by 48,919 votes, securing 66.5 percent of votes polled against AIADMK.
The 2016 margin against the AIADMK was wider still—68,456 votes—underscoring how deeply the constituency is embedded in his organisational base.
The Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni carries the legacy of the late Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi and served as Udhayanidhi’s electoral debut. In 2021, he won the seat by 46,043 votes—approximately 59.7 percent of the vote—reclaiming the constituency that the AIADMK had taken in 2016.
Udhayanidhi, contesting against TVK’s Selvam D. was defending the family bastion that has been a DMK stronghold for decades.
An urban coastal seat, with a significant Muslim and Dalit population, was a litmus test of the DMK’s hold over Chennai’s youth, students, professionals and minority communities. Udhayanidhi had campaigned on youth-centric schemes, skill training and sanitation improvements.
(Edited by Prerna Madan)
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