Jaya creates history by beating anti-incumbency in TN

AIADMK supremo J Jayalalitha has upturned not just pollster predictions but also the longstanding Tamil Nadu political convention of anti-incumbency in a manner that is nothing if not spectacular. 

She may have benefitted immensely from a somewhat fragmented opposition, with PMK and the Vijayakanth-led hodgepodge coalition PWF.  

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PWF and PMK have vanished into thin air. It is unlikely, according to trends, for Vijayakanth to even win his own seat of Ulundurpet.

The DMK threw everything it could at Jayalalithaa in what inevitably would be the last election the party will fight under the titular leadership of patriarch M Karunanidhi. 

The 92-year-old Karunanidhi, once counted amongst the canniest politicians in India, will have to bow out, losing to the woman he and his party dismissed as a pushover after MGR's death in 1987.

• Tamil-Nadu-elections
• Tamil Nadu elections 2016
• Jayalalitha