Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister and AIADMK coordination O Panneerselvam defeated his DMK rival T Thanga Tamilselvan in Bodinayakanur Assembly constituency. The tight race that saw several twists and turns over the course of several rounds, eventually saw OPS win by a margin of 12,154 votes.

With over 2.1 lakh voters, Bodinayakkanur forms part of the Theni Lok Sabha constituency.OPS is the incumbent MLA of this constituency. He won the assembly elections from Bodinayakanur in 2011 and 2016. The Assembly seat is also historically important since former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa won from the seat in 1989, her first state Assembly elections.

O Panneerselvam’s main opponent Thanga Tamilselvan, who was earlier with the AIADMK, is a three-time MLA from Andipatti assembly constituency, from where he won in 2001, 2011 and 2016. In 2002, he gave up his seat for AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa to contest and win. He was sent to the Rajya Sabha in exchange for his loyalty as an AIADMK member. In 2016, he again won the elections to the state legislative assembly on an AIADMK ticket from Andipatti. However, his term as an MLA was cut short after Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal disqualified him and 17 other MLAs for siding with TTV Dhinakaran. He joined TTV Dhinakaran’s AMMK and was the propaganda secretary of the party. He contested in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Theni and lost to OP Raveendranath Kumar, O Panneerselvam’s son, who won the seat on an AIADMK ticket.

In June 2019, Thanga Tamilselvan joined the DMK at the party headquarters in Chennai and said that DMK had the proper leadership of a single leader MK Stalin.