With nine days to the 6 October bypolls, TVK, AIADMK and DMK campaign hard in Madurantakam and Dharapuram. The May 2026 results, the defection debate, local issues and who is campaigning where.
With nine days to polling, campaigning in the Madurantakam (SC) and Dharapuram (SC) by-elections has entered its final week. The ruling TVK, the AIADMK and the DMK are the main contenders, but both seats are five-cornered contests: the Left parties are running as an independent front and the NTK has candidates in both.
No independent opinion poll has been published for either seat. The only hard numbers are the May 2026 Assembly results, when both seats were won by AIADMK candidates who later resigned and joined TVK.
| Seat | Winner (AIADMK) | Runner-up | TVK’s own candidate | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Madurantakam | Maragatham Kumaravel — 69,284 (34.95%) | TVK — 62,090 (31.32%) | 2nd | 7,194 votes |
| Dharapuram | P. Sathyabama — 81,100 | DMK — 64,373 | 3rd — 46,438 (23.23%) | 16,727 votes |
On paper, TVK now fields the May winners, so it hopes to add their personal vote to its own. Whether those votes transfer is the central question of both contests — and it is the argument its rivals are campaigning on.
Both TVK candidates resigned their seats on 25 May and joined TVK the same evening. The AIADMK called the move “horse-trading” at the time, and Edappadi K. Palaniswami has described the vacancies as “engineered”, making the defections a core theme of his campaign. The DMK, which finished third and second in the two seats in May, is pitching itself as the main alternative, fielding a high-profile critic of TVK in Madurantakam (I. Paranthamen) and a fresh face in Dharapuram (S. Suganya).
| Date | Seat | Campaign |
|---|---|---|
| 25 Sep | Madurantakam | CM Vijay’s rally near the Aathur toll plaza — “I came as your son, not as CM” |
| 25–26 Sep | Madurantakam | AIADMK’s Edappadi K. Palaniswami |
| 26 Sep | Dharapuram | DMK’s Udhayanidhi Stalin — roadshow with S. Suganya |
| 27–28 Sep | Dharapuram | Edappadi K. Palaniswami (scheduled) |
| 30 Sep | Dharapuram | CM Vijay’s public meeting (scheduled) |
| 2 Oct | Both | Vijay’s Madurantakam roadshow; Palaniswami in Dharapuram (scheduled) |
DMK president M.K. Stalin is expected to campaign for two days across both seats, and NTK chief coordinator Seeman is also expected, according to earlier reports; their dates had not been announced.
Madurantakam: lake restoration, drinking water, bus connectivity and jobs for young people who commute to Chennai. Dharapuram: irrigation and water supply for farmers, rural employment and drinking water in town wards. In both seats, the government’s welfare record — the breakfast scheme expansion and the Gold Ring scheme launching on 28 September, both announced before the Model Code of Conduct took effect — sits alongside the defection debate.
Vijay has made the bypolls a direct contest with both the DMK and the AIADMK. For TVK, the test is whether his personal campaign can offset the defection argument and turn the party’s statewide support into votes for these two candidates. For the AIADMK, it is whether its May vote stays with the party rather than the person. For the DMK, it is whether it can convert a close three-way split into a win.
Note on projections
VettriThalapathy does not publish vote-share projections. No independent opinion poll for these seats had been published at the time of writing. Campaigning ends at 6 PM on 4 October, 48 hours before polls close; the only result that counts will be declared after counting on 9 October.
By-Election Madurantakam Dharapuram September 27 2026