Puducherry Assembly Election Results 2016: Counting begins at 8 AM

The Congress-DMK alliance is expecting a big victory however, other parties too are hopeful.

Written by: Aditya Sharma

Published: May 19, 2016, 6:00 AM IST

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https://www.india.com/news/india/puducherry-assembly-election-results-2016-counting-begins-at-8-am-1195964/ Copy

May 19: The counting of votes for the Puducherry Assembly elections will begin at 8 AM. The first trends will soon start pouring in. Vote-counting usually goes on till 12 noon after which the Election Commission is expected to announce the results by 3 PM. The Congress-DMK alliance is expecting a big victory however, other parties too are hopeful.

In the last two-three years, there has been a rise in anti-incumbency in Puducherry. The voter turnout in the Union Territory was quite significant and more than half the voters were women. The total turnout was recorded at 81.94% i.e. nearly 9.41 lac voters out of which 4.94 lac were women. Contesting the elections are 344 candidates, including 96 independents from the four districts; Puducherry, Mahe, Yanam and Karaikal.

Analysts are eyeing the performance of the incumbent Chief Minister and founder of All India NR Congress (AINRC), N. Rangasamy from Indira Nagar constituency who is seeking re-elections. His popularity in the UT has drastically gone down making it easier for his main rival, former Chief Minister V Vaithilingam, to ride to power. Vaithilingam is currently the Leader of Opposition from the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC), Puducherry (regional wing of the Indian National Congress). Other major political parties aiming to grab power in the Southern UT are, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP).

All parties in this election are contesting the 30-seat Assembly solo, except for the Congress party and the DMK. The two have divided their seat share and will be contesting from 21 and 9 constituencies respectively. An alliance between the AINRC and AIADMK, seen in the last elections didn’t go well for either party and AINRC ended up in full control of the government. This time, both parties have nominated their candidates for  every single seat in Puducherry.