Sriperumbudur: Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK's) TR Baalu won the Sriperumbudur Lok Sabha seat of Tamil Nadu defeating All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's (AIADMK) G Premkumar by by over 4.8 lakh votes.
As per the ECI data, Baalu secured 758611 votes while Premkumar got 271582 votes. Tamil Maanila Congress's VN Venugopal secured 210110 votes.
The Sriperumbudur Lok Sabha Constituency has seen high-profile poll battles between the DMK and the Vanniyar community-dominated PMK, and the AIADMK too, in the past. But this time a tussle is on the cards with the opposition AIADMK keen on reviving ties with its erstwhile allies, the PMK and the DMDK.
Former Union Minister and DMK leader T.R. Baalu, who won from the constituency in the 2009 and 2019 parliamentary elections, is eyeing his third victory again from this constituency.
AIADMK has fielded G Premkumar while the Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar), the NDA constituent from Tamil Nadu this time, has picked VN Venugopal to contest from the seat.
For its part, the DMK is confident of retaining the seat won by its leader T R Baalu in the 2019 poll by securing 7,93,281 votes trouncing his nearest rival from the PMK A Vaithilangam who secured 2,85,326 votes. Baalu had won from this constituency in 2009 when he defeated PMK’s A K Moorthy by a slender margin.
The constituency contains the Assembly segments of Maduravoyal, Ambattur and Alandur (in Chennai), Sriperumbudur in Kancheepuram district, and Pallavaram and Tambaram (Chennai suburbs) in Chengalpattu district.
TR Balu, who won the Rajya Sabha election for the first time in 1986, was nominated as DMK's candidate in the South Chennai constituency in the 1996 Lok Sabha election and won the election by a landslide. Subsequently, he was given the post of Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas. After that, he stood and won the 1998, 1999, and 2004 parliamentary elections from the South Chennai constituency. Baalu served as Union Minister for Environment and Forests from 1999 to 2003 and Union Minister for Shipping and Road Transport from 2004 to 2009.
After that, in the 2009 and 2019 parliamentary elections, Baalu stood for the Sriperumbudur parliamentary election and took the oath of victory. Considering his long parliamentary experience, he was given the post of DMK Parliamentary Committee Chairman. Apart from MP, and Union Minister posts, TR Baalu is also a member of several parliamentary standing committees.
Sriperumbudur (Incumbent: Baalu.T.R - DMK)
2024 contest: The total number of registered voters in this constituency in 2024 polls was 2382119, and the seat saw a voting turnout of 60.25% (1435243 total count of votes), according to the Election Commission’s data. The seat went to polls in phase 1 on April 19, 2024.
In the 2019 LS Polls, T. R Baalu won from Sriperumbudur, getting 793,281 votes, comprising 56.39% of the total number of votes polled. He defeated PMK’s Vaithilingam A by a significant margin of 507,955 votes. In 2014, Ramachandran, K.N. Thiru of AIADMK had won from this seat, polling 545,820 votes (42.42%) and defeating Jagathrakshakan, S. Thiru of DMK by a margin of 1,02,646 votes.
