3,352 candidates forfeit deposit in T.N. Assembly polls

Of the 4,032 candidates who contested in the Assembly elections held in Tamil Nadu on April 23, 3,352 lost their deposit amounts as they failed to get one-sixth of the total votes in their respective constituencies.

Of the 79 candidates contesting in Karur, 76 lost their deposits. Perambur, where 45 candidates lost their deposits, Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar (36 candidates) and Kolathur (33 candidates) are among the constituencies where more than 30 candidates lost their deposits.

While AIADMK candidates from leading political parties lost their deposits in 19 constituencies, BJP candidates lost their deposits in five constituencies. NTK lost its deposits in all 234 constituencies. Congress, CPI, CPI(M), DMDK, DMK and VCK did not lose their deposits in any of the constituencies in which they contested. Except for one independent candidate, 2,208 independent candidates lost their deposits. TVK also did not lose deposits in any of the 233 constituencies.

According to the Election Commission of India (EC) figures, the voting percentage (State) was 86.03% while the voting percentage (excluding postal voting) was 85.01%. Of the total 5,86,954 postal votes received, 65,047, or 11.08% of the total postal votes, were rejected. While TVK candidates got 1,72,26,209 votes in 233 constituencies, DMK, contesting in 176 seats, got 1,19,29,144 votes and AIADMK, contesting in 172 Assembly segments, got 1,04,62,146 votes.

Looking at the gender distribution, 13 of the 108 winning TVK candidates were women, and six of the 47 AIADMK candidates were women. The only DMDK candidate to win, one of the two CPI(M) candidates to win and one of the five Congress candidates to win are women.

One of the four winning PMK candidates is a woman. None of the winning candidates from AMMK, BJP, CPI, DMK and VCK are women.