Milkipur, Erode By Election Results 2025 LIVE Updates: BJP’s Chandrabhanu Paswan wins in Milkipur; DMK’s Chandhirakumar secures landslide victory in Erode

The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu extended its winning run in elections on Saturday by emerging victorious in the Erode East bypoll with a massive margin against actor-politician Seeman's NTK, a victory that should come as a major boost to the M K Stalin-led party ahead of next year's Assembly elections.

DMK's V C Chandhirakumar trounced Naam Tamilar Katchi's (NTK) M K Seethalakshmi by a margin of 91,558 votes. In the process, NTK, a Tamil nationalist organisation, forefeited deposit. With 44 other candidates-- most of them independents, in fray, NOTA (None of the Above) grabbed the third place with 6,109 votes.

Chandhirakumar polled 1,15,709 votes while Seethalakshmi came a distant second with 24,151 votes.

The winning candidate later said the DMK has secured "75 per cent of the votes." "I dedicate this victory to the Chief Minister (Stalin). People have reposed faith in the DMK, the CM and deputy CM (Udhayanidhi Stalin)," he told reporters.

The victory sparked jubilation among DMK supporters in Erode and elsewehere. At the party headquarters Anna Arivalayam in Chennai, DMK workers celebrated the win by bursting crackers.

The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of Congress MLA from the segment, EVKS Elangovan last year.

The Congress is a part of the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) in the state and the seat was won by the national party's E Thirumahan Everaa in 2021 elections. Following his death in January, 2023, his father Elangovan won the bypoll held in March that year.

Assembly elections are scheduled both in Tamil Nadu and the Puducherry union terriory next year. The DMK is keen to retain power in TN, after sweeping the elections in 2021 that ended its 10 year-long stint in the opposition. DMK and its allies had won 38 of the 39 LS seats in the 2019 parliamentary polls as well. The ruling party had retained the Vikravandi. (PTI)

The BJP won the prestigious fight for the Milkipur Assembly seat on Saturday, with its candidate Chandrabhanu Paswan trumping his Samajwadi Party (SP) rival Ajit Prasad by 61,710 votes.

The BJP had staked it all for the bypoll, which falls under the Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the party had lost from Faizabad, in a loss of face as the Lok Sabha constituency includes Ayodhya. The SP candidate who won from Faizabad, Awadhesh Prasad, had vacated the Milkipur seat, necessitating the bypoll. Prasad’s son Ajit was the SP candidate for the bypoll.

“We took the welfare programmes and schemes of the double engine BJP government to the people of Milkipur and they supported us. We will not leave any stone unturned for the development of Milkipur,” Paswan said, following his victory, crediting it to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the good governance of the BJP-led Centre and state governments. Read More

BJP candidate Chandrabhanu Paswan has won the Milkipur bypolls by a margin of 61,710 votes, according to the Election Commission website. While Paswan polled over 1.46 lakh votes, his nearest rival Samajwadi Party's Ajit Prasad garnered 84,687 votes, it said.

Earlier, Paswan, 38, took a decisive lead over SP's Prasad, 42, by over 61,000 votes after the 29th round of counting for the Milkipur assembly by-poll on Saturday, officials said. According to the official website of the Election Commission, after 28 rounds of counting, Paswan (with 1,39,507 votes) was leading Prasad (79,210 votes) by a margin of 60,297 votes.

Santosh Kumar of the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) has got 5,158 votes.

The Milkipur by-poll was necessitated after local MLA Awadhesh Prasad vacated the seat following his Faizabad win in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The SP fielded his son Ajit Prasad in the bypoll even as BJP opted for a party cadre Paswan, both from the Pasi community. While the SP was anxious to retain the seat it won in 2022 UP polls, the BJP was anxious to avenge its Faizabad loss that had happened within five months of the high-profile consecration of Ram temple at Ayodhya.

Milkipur was the only seat the BJP lost in Ayodhya district in the 2022 Assembly polls. (PTI)

As vote counting nears completion in the Erode East bypoll, the ruling DMK has surged ahead with a decisive lead, reaffirming its electoral dominance in the region. DMK candidate VC Chandhirakumar has secured 61,834 votes, placing him significantly ahead of his closest rival, M K Seethalakshmi of the Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK), who received 13,466 votes so far.

The bypoll, necessitated by the demise of veteran Congress leader EVKS Elangovan, saw a voter turnout of 67.97 per cent, with 1,54,657 people casting their ballots. While 46 candidates were in the fray, the election turned into a two-cornered contest between the DMK and NTK of Tamil nationalist leader Seeman. The main opposition, AIADMK, and BJP jointly boycotted the election, reshaping the expected vote distribution.

The DMK’s commanding performance comes as no surprise. In the 2023 bypoll, Elangovan clinched victory with a margin of 66,233 votes, defeating AIADMK’s K S Thenarassu, while NTK’s Menaka Navaneethan secured 10,827 votes.

Read Arun Janardhanan's Political Pulse here

In Tamil Nadu’s Erode East, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is on course for a decisive win after 12 rounds of counting. The party holds a commanding lead of 83,324 votes, while Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) candidate Seethalakshmi has secured 17,692 votes.

Aparna Bisht Yadav, Vice Chairperson of the UP Women Commission and BJP leader said, "This is a consequence of the faith people have in PM Narendra Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath."