Congress national president, K. Kamaraj faced an unexpected setback in the 1967 election in Virudhunagar — defeated by a young DMK student leader, P. Seenivasan, by a narrow margin of 1,285 votes. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
In Tamil Nadu’s intensely personality-centric politics, the electorate has repeatedly demonstrated that no leader, however towering, is beyond scrutiny. From the first Assembly election in Madras State in independent India to more recent decades, voters have not hesitated to defeat stalwarts, even Chief Ministers.
The first such instance dates back to the 1952 Assembly elections in which Chief Minister P.S. Kumaraswami Raja (Congress) was defeated in Srivilliputhur by D.K. Raja (Independent).
Tamil Nadu Elections: Where even the powerful can lose
Tamil Nadu Elections: Where even the powerful can lose
| Video Credit:
The Hindu
Published – April 15, 2026 06:00 am IST
