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Tamil Nadu’s Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin retained his Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni Assembly seat, fending off a close challenge with Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK)’s D Selvam.
Udhayanidhi won with a lead of 7140 votes over TVK’s Selvam.
AIADMK’s Aadi Rajaram was a distant third, by the end of the total 17 rounds of counting at 6 pm.
Actor-politician Vijay’s TVK has made a historic political debut, leading in over 100 seats as of 5 pm.
If DMK ends up being the main opposition party, Udhayanidhi is expected to be the leader of opposition.
His father, incumbent CM and DMK chief MK Stalin, suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of TVK candidate and senior politician VS Babu in his constituency Kolathur in north Chennai.
Udhayanidhi’s lead In Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni was much narrower than the previous 2021 election which marked his electoral debut. Back then, he won by a comfortable margin of 69,355 votes over Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) candidate AVA Kassali, polling 51.21% of the total votes.
This time, by round 8, Udhayanidhi narrowly led by 1,048 votes. But by round 14, this gap widened to 10,209 votes.
The DMK has suffered a major defeat in the 2026 Tamil Nadu election, its seat share falling drastically from last year’s 133 seats, in the 234-member Assembly. As of 5 pm, DMK had won 6 seats and was leading in 53. TVK on the other hand had won 10 seats and was leading in 99.
The seat, which comes under the Chennai Central Lok Sabha constituency, is a DMK stronghold.
Former Chief Minister and Udhayanidhi’s grandfather Karunanidhi had won thrice from the Chepauk constituency (in 1996, 2001, and 2006) before its unification with Triplicane (Thiruvallikeni) constituency in 2011, following the delimitation of constituencies carried out in 2008. Since then, another senior DMK leader J Anbazhagan represented the constituency twice in 2011 and 2016.
The defunct Triplicane constituency, meanwhile, was won twice by the DMK (1996, 2001) and once by the AIADMK (2006), before the merger.
Udhayanidhi’s very first role in DMK was his appointment as managing director of Murasoli, the party's newspaper. In 2019, he was appointed as the party's youth wing secretary, a post once held by his father MK Stalin.
Following his debut in electoral politics in 2021, he was made the Deputy CM in 2024. Stalin held the same position from 2009 to 2011, when his father Karunanidhi was CM.
Udhayanidhi is widely seen as the political heir of Karunanidhi and MK Stalin, with DMK being accused of dynastic politics and nepotism.
D Selvam is a former general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TPCC). He joined TVK in March 2026, soon after his suspension from Congress for alleged anti-party activities.