One vote upended veteran DMK leader K R Periakaruppan in Tiruppattur

In a dramatic electoral upset, senior DMK leader and State Minister for Co-operatives KR Periakaruppan lost the Tiruppattur Assembly seat by a razor-thin margin of just one vote in the Tamil Nadu elections.

Election Commission data revealed that Seenivasa Sethupathy R of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) secured victory with 83,375 votes, while Periakaruppan finished with 83,374 votes. The contest witnessed a tense finish; Periyakaruppan was leading by 30 votes at the end of the penultimate round before the final tally shifted in favour of the TVK candidate.

The defeat of the sitting minister highlights the surge of actor Vijay's TVK, which emerged as the single largest party with 108 seats in a historic debut that disrupted the state's traditional bipolar politics. BJP's KC Thirumaran finished a distant third in the constituency with 29,054 votes.

The result in Tiruppattur remains one of the closest in India's electoral history, emphasising the decisive impact of individual ballots.