1998 Indian general election in Tamil Nadu

Indian general election in Tamil Nadu, 1998

← 1996 February 1998 1999 →
39 seats
First party Second party   Leader J. Jayalalithaa M. Karunanidhi Party AIADMK DMK Alliance NDA United Front (India) Seats won 30 9 Seat change 30 30 Popular vote 12,169,812 10,937,809 Percentage 45.08% 42.72% Swing 42.18% 12.24%
1998 Election map (by constituencies) Saffron = NDA and Red = UF

The 1998 Indian general election polls in Tamil Nadu were held for 39 seats in the state. New elections were called when Indian National Congress (INC) left the United Front government led by I. K. Gujral, after they refused to drop the regional Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party from the government after the DMK was linked by an investigative panel to Sri Lankan separatists blamed for the killing of Rajiv Gandhi.^[1] The result was a landslide victory for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) winning 29 seats, which helped result in Atal Bihari Vajpayee being sworn in as the 16th Prime Minister of India. J. Jayalalithaa and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, broke off from their long alliance with Indian National Congress and formed an alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party, by joining the National Democratic Alliance. This state proved to be very important in determining the prime minister, since the 18 seats of AIADMK proved valuable for BJP to hold power. That was short-lived, since the AIADMK left the alliance in less than a year, and BJP lost the vote of confidence resulting in fresh elections being called.

Seat allotments[]

Source: Frontline ^[2]

United Front[]

• Note: Even though CPI(M) originally wanted to contest in support of the United Front, it decided to contest alone when only 1 seat (Coimbatore) was offered. After the fallout, CPM wanted to contest 6 seats in Tamil Nadu on its own, but eventually only contested 2 seats and decided to support DMK-TMC front in the other 37 seats. This was done to keep out the possibility of any vote splitting that might result in NDA gaining seats.^[3]

National Democratic Alliance[]

Source: Indian Express^[4]

No.	Party	Election Symbol	Leader	Seats
1.	All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam		J. Jayalalithaa	23
2.	Pattali Makkal Katchi	Mango	Dr. Ramdoss	5
3.	Bharatiya Janata Party	Lotus	K.N. Laxmanan	5
4.	Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam	Top	Vaiko	5
5.	Janata Party	Farmer with plough And chakra	Subramanian Swamy	1
Unregistered party, whose candidate ran as an independent
6.	Thamizhaga Rajiv Congress		Vazhappady K. Ramamurthy	1

Congress alliance[]

Voting and results[]

Results by Alliance[]

Election map of results based on parties. Colours are based on the results table on the left

Election Map (Results reflected as %seats won by districts)

  AIADMK-BJP alliance won all the seats in this district

  AIADMK-BJP alliance won 67% of the seats (Vellore)

  DMK-TMC-CPI alliance won all the seats in this district

List of Elected MPs[]

^c-indicates sitting/incumbent M.P. from previous Lok Sabha (1996–1998)

Post-election Union Council of Ministers from Tamil Nadu[]

Source: The Tribune^[6][7]

Cabinet Ministers[]

• Note: R. Muthiah resigned in just 20 days in office, due to his assets coming into question by the high court in Madras.^[8] In a year, cabinet ministers M. Thambidurai resigned along with M.R. Janarthanam, who was the replacement of R. Muthiah, as part of AIADMK's withdrawal from NDA, to start up fresh elections in 1999. Vazhappady Ramamurthy also refused to quit his cabinet ministership, and quit his relationship with AIADMK while keeping its relationship with NDA.^[6]

Ministers of State (Independent charge)[]

Ministers of State[]

See also[]

• Elections in Tamil Nadu

Bibliography[]

• Volume I, 1998 Indian general election, 12th Lok Sabha

External links[]

• Website of Election Commission of India
• CNN-IBN Lok Sabha Election History
• Of Polls and Prediction