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The Anna Nagar Assembly constituency in Chennai has the highest number of voter deletions, with 1.18 lakh. Chief Minister MK Stalin’s constituency of Kolathur has 1.02 lakh deletions – one of the highest in Chennai.
Chennai district saw the highest number of voter deletions across Tamil Nadu. A total of 14.36 lakh have been left out of the draft electoral roll published on December 19.
Some other constituencies in Chennai that stand out are Velachery (40%), Thousand Lights (41%) and T Nagar (41%).
Chennai has 16 Assembly constituencies and has long been considered the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) bastion in both general and Assembly elections.
For instance, Stalin has won the Kolathur Assembly constituency three consecutive times since it was carved out in 2011 following a delimitation process. In 2021, Stalin secured 1,05,522 votes out of 1,73,388 votes that were polled. Kolathur, at the time of the 2021 elections, had 2,81,128 people on its rolls.
Previously, the CM registered four wins in Thousand Lights.
Similarly, in the general elections, Chennai Central has remained a stronghold of the late Mursoli Maran and, later, his son and former Cabinet minister Dayanidhi Maran. The DMK has won in Chennai Central in 13 general elections since 1977.
The newly released draft electoral roll shows 5.47 lakh deletions in Chennai Central, 3.78 lakh deletions in Chennai North and 5.10 lakh deletions in Chennai South.
Constituency-wise breakdown
Chennai Central has six constituencies: Villivakam, Egmore, Harbour, Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni, Thousand Lights and Anna Nagar.
Anna Nagar saw the highest voter deletions in Chennai Central with a voter deletion percentage of 42%. The number of voters has dropped from 2.8 lakh to 1.18 lakh.
Vilivakam also has a 42% voter deletion. The number of voters dropped from 2.44 lakh to 1.42 lakh.
In Velachery, 1.26 voters have been deleted. The number of voters dropped from 3.16 lakh to 1.89 lakh – a 40% reduction.
Thousand Lights has 97,082 voter deletions out of 2.38 lakh — another 41% drop.
Chennai North has five constituencies: Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar, Perambur, Kolathur, Royapuram and Thiru-vi-ka-nagar (SC).
Stalin’s Kolathur constituency saw the highest number of voter deletions in Chennai North, at 1.02 lakh. Perambur follows with 95,679 deletions out of 2.95 lakh.
Voter deletions in Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar are 72,574 out of 2.5 lakh. In Royapuram, there are 50,170 out of 1.97 lakh – the lowest number of deletions in all of Chennai (25%).
In Thiru-vi-ka-nagar, 58,199 voters were deleted out of 2.22 lakh, which is 26%.
Chennai South has five Assembly constituencies.
1.26 lakh voters were deleted in Velachery, followed closely by Virugampakam, which has 1.12 lakh voter deletions.
T Nagar has seen a 41% drop in voter numbers after 96,118 voters were deleted from a total of 2.35 lakh.
Mylapore has 88,000 voter deletions out of 2.69 lakh. In Saidapet, 87,134 voters were removed from the roll.