Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu who were defeated in elections
In Tamil Nadu’s intensely personality-centric politics, the electorate has repeatedly demonstrated that no leader, however towering, is beyond scrutiny. From the first Assembly election in
In Tamil Nadu’s intensely personality-centric politics, the electorate has repeatedly demonstrated that no leader, however towering, is beyond scrutiny. From the first Assembly election in Madras State in independent India to more recent decades, voters have not hesitated to defeat stalwarts, even Chief Ministers. The first such instance dates back to the 1952 Assembly elections in which Chief Minister P.S. Kumaraswami Raja (Congress) was defeated in Srivilliputhur by D.K. Raja (Independent). The next instance was recorded in the watershed 1967 Assembly elections, which fundamentally altered the State’s political landscape. For the first time in independent India, a regional party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) came to power, dislodging the Indian Congress. Since then no national party, independently, has been able to gain the confidence of the people. In 1967, the elections were held amid extraordinary political ferment. A massive anti-Hindi agitation in the 1960s, led and amplified by the DMK, had swept across the State. Students poured onto the streets, and several lost their lives in police firing. Simultaneously, spiralling prices of essential commodities deepened public anger against the Congress government. This wave of discontent translated decisively at the ballot box. The then Chief Minister, M. Bhaktavatsalam, contesting from Sriperumbudur (then a general constituency), suffered defeat at the hands of DMK candidate D. Irajarathinam. He lost by a margin of 8,926 votes, polling 41,655 votes. His defeat symbolised the collapse of Congress dominance in the state. In the same election, one of India’s tallest political figures and Congress national president, K.
Kamaraj, also faced an unexpected setback. Contesting from Virudhunagar, the former Chief Minister was defeated by a young DMK student leader, P. Seenivasan, by a narrow margin of 1,285 votes. According to a UNI report published in The Hindu dated February 24, 1967, Seenivasan said, “I am a poor man and with borrowed cars and limited resources at our disposal; we did our job as well as we could. But for the students’ help this area received, the battle could not have been won.” He said students “did hard work in the rural areas which have no roads or proper communications worth the name. We helped them in their agricultural operations and made them understand we are their friends.” The scale of the Congress rout in 1967 was striking. Along with Bhaktavatsalam and Kamaraj, five Cabinet Ministers were also defeated. Accepting the verdict, Bhaktavatsalam remarked: “I accept the defeat as the verdict of the people against the Congress. I offer my felicitations to the DMK who will be forming the Government.” For nearly three decades after 1967, no sitting Chief Minister in Tamil Nadu was defeated in an election. That streak was broken dramatically in 1996, when J Jayalalitha (as her name was spelled then) faced a crushing electoral reversal. Jayalalitha had come to power in 1991 with a massive mandate, winning from two constituencies, Bargur and Kangeyam, in an election held against the backdrop of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination.
The BriefWire