Tamil Nadu’s urban Lok Sabha constituencies vote for DMK-led India-Bloc

Both regional and national parties contesting in the urban region  carefully picked candidates who are professionals to reflect the image of their party and to woe the urban and youth population.

While exit polls also suggested that the incumbent DMK has a stronghold in the state, the BJP is hoping for a breakthrough especially in places like Coimbatore.

Here’s a snapshot of the TN’s key urban constituencies:

Chennai

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) continues its dominance in Tamil Nadu capital Chennai, with the party winning in all three Lok Sabha constituencies: North, Central, and South.

In Chennai South, DMK's sitting MP Thamizhachi Thangapandian defeated former Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan by more than 2 lakh votes. While Thangapandian received more than 5.12 lakh votes, Soundararajan garnered only 2.8 lakh votes, and AIADMK's Dr. J. Jayavardhan finished a distant third with over 1.7 lakh votes

In Chennai Central, senior DMK leader and former Union minister Dayanidhi Maran won by more than 2.4 lakh votes. Maran secured 4.13 lakh votes, while Vinoj P Selvam of the BJP received 1.6 lakh votes, and Parthasarathy B of the DMDK trailed behind with around 72,000 votes.

In North Chennai, Kalanidhi Veeraswamy of the DMK won by a margin of 3.3 lakh votes. Veeraswamy secured 4.9 lakh votes, with R Manohar of the AIADMK coming in second with 1.5 lakh votes. RC Paul Kanagaraj of the BJP managed to secure only 1.13 lakh votes

Even though the region has a DMK stronghold, for the first time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a roadshow in T-Nagar to rally support for party candidates, while TN CM MK Stalin also campaigned in various residential neighbourhoods of the constituencies.

Madurai

Madurai, known as the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu, saw a triangular contest. The Madurai Lok Sabha seat was won by its sitting MP and CPI(M) candidate Su Venkatesan in 2024. Venkatesan was pitted against BJP candidate Raama Sreenivasan and AIADMK nominee P Saravanan.

The highlight of this constituency is the solid selection of candidates for the urban region.

Venkatesan, is a well-known writer and a Sahitya Akademi recipient. Similarly,  AIADMK’s Saravanan is a doctor by profession and Sreenivasan is a popular face in regional channels and was an adjunct professor at the School of Management of SASTRA University.

Madurai is a a key industrial region. ELCOT and SIPCOT projects in Madurai will also be coming up and the region is expecting the elected member to help in creating jobs through these industrial projects.

Voters have also taken note of the completion of Madurai-AIIMS.  In 2003, the Centre announced the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) with this precise goal. A ‘prestige’ project for the Centre, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for construction at Thoppur, Madurai, in January 2019.

However, the construction work is still not complete, and not one, but three batches of undergraduate students have been accommodated at the Government Medical College and Hospital, in nearby Ramanathapuram district.

This has been the key campaign talk among all the parties and TN urban population hopes the elected candidate to fast track the construction of Madurai AIIMs.

Coimbatore

Bharatiya Janata Party's star campaigner K Annamalai is defeated in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore constituency as Dravida Munetra Kazhagam (DMK)'s Ganapathy Rajkumar won with over 5.6 lakh votes.

This was a crucial constituency for BJP as it fielded its Tamil Nadu party president K Annamalai to contest without any regional party support. All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (AIADMK) is represented by Singai Ramachandran came in third with more than 2.3 lakh votes.

This is a second defeat for Annamalai as he lost in Aravakurichi constituency during Tamil Nadu Assembly Polls in 2021.  Coimbatore is the second-largest city in Tamil Nadu, comprises Palladam, Sulur, Kavundampalayam, Coimbatore (North), Coimbatore (South), and Singanallur assembly segments.

In 2019, Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM)’s PR Natarajan emerged victorious from Coimbatore with a total of 571,150 votes, constituting 46% of the votes. BJP's CP Radhakrishnan, secured the position of the runner-up with 392,007 votes, which accounted for 31% of the total votes.

In the 2014 general elections, AIADMK’s Nagarajan clinched the victory with 431,717 votes. Interestingly, In 1998, the region even gave an opportunity to the BJP and sent CP Radhakrishnan to the Parliament. Sriperumbudur

Sriperumbudur, one of the 39 parliamentary constituencies in Tamil Nadu, is an industrial hub and one of the high-profile seats in the southern state.

The constituency comprises the Assembly segments of Maduravoyal, Ambattur and Alandur in Chennai, Sriperumbudur in Kancheepuram district, and Pallavaram and Tambaram in Chengalpattu district.

DMK's TR Baalu secured a sweeping win with around 7.5 lakh votes from the Sriperumbudur constituency, defeating the rival AI ADMK by leader G Premkumar by more than 4 lakh votes. This will be Baalu's seventh term in the Lower House of Parliament.

V Ravichandran from Naam Tamilar Katchi and Venugopal from Tamil Maanila Congress are the other prominent candidates.
There are several infrastructure-related issues that citizens have voiced out.

Some of the glaring issues include absence of civic infra works in the industrial belt to ease traffic congestion, improvement of health sector, slow progress of the extension project of the Mass Rapid Transit system (MRTS) from Velachery to St. Thomas Mount and more.