The twelfth legislative assembly election of Tamil Nadu was held on 10 May 2001.

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (; AIADMK) is an Indian regional political party with great influence in the state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry. It is a Dravidian party founded by the former chief ...

(AIADMK)-led front won the elections and its general secretary,

J. Jayalalithaa Jayaram Jayalalithaa (24 February 1948 – 5 December 2016) was an Indian politician and actress who served as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for more than fourteen years over six terms between 1991 and 2016. From 9 February 1989 to 5 December 2 ...

was sworn in as Chief Minister, even though she could not legally run as MLA in this election. She was unanimously nominated as Chief Minister by her party and was ready to serve her second term. But due to criminal and corruption charges from her first term, on 21 September 2001, a five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court of India ruled in a unanimous verdict that "a person who is convicted for a criminal offense and sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years cannot be appointed the Chief Minister of a State under Article 164 (1) read with (4) and cannot continue to function as such". Thereby, the bench decided that "in the appointment of Dr. J. Jayalalithaa as Chief Minister there has been a clear infringement of a Constitutional provision and that a writ of quo warranto must issue". In effect, her appointment as Chief Minister was declared null and invalid with retrospective effect. Therefore, technically, she was not the Chief Minister in the period between 14 May 2001 and 21 September 2001. After her resignation on 21 September 2001, she put in

O. Panneerselvam Ottakarathevar Panneerselvam, popularly known as OPS (born 14 January 1951) is an Indian politician who served as the .Coordinator of AIADMKList of chief ministers of Tamil Nadu, 6th Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu from 6 December 2016 to 15 Febr ...

, as the official 13th Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, until she could clear up the charges from her first term, so she can take up the mantle of Chief Minister officially, on 2 March 2002.

Background and Coalition

The incumbent party,

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (; DMK) is a political party based in the state of Tamil Nadu where it is currently the ruling party having a comfortable majority without coalition support and the union territory of Puducherry where it is curre ...

, finished its full 5 terms, for the first time since winning the 1967 state assembly election. According to various sources and exit polls, the incumbent party was supposed to retain power, due to the popularity of its leader M. Karunanidhi. Due to the anti-incumbency factor, problems of development cited by the people in many areas of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil languag ...

, and a broad coalition formed by AIADMK, including

Tamil Maanila Congress The Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) (; TMC(M)) is an Indian regional political party in the state of Tamil Nadu. It is founded by the former Member of Parliament of the Republic of India G. K. Moopanar on 29 March 1996 as a breakaway fac ...

, who left the alliance of

(DMK), because they joined

BJP The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

and the

National Democratic Alliance National Democratic Alliance (NDA) () is a centre-right to right-wing and conservative Indian big tent political alliance led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It was founded in 1998 and currently controls the government of India ...

(NDA),

Pattali Makkal Katchi Paattali Makkal Katchi (; PMK) is a political party in Tamil Nadu, India, founded by S. Ramadoss in 1989 for the Vanniyars, a caste in northern Tamil Nadu. It is currently part of the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). It contests th ...

(PMK),

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British ...

and the left parties, the AIADMK led front, with its general secretary

, won by a landslide, sweeping across the state. The coalition at the AIADMK led-center would prove to be short-lived, since in less than a year,

, and its leader Dr. Ramdoss, left the coalition, citing authoritarian type rule by

. Also the

, who proved to be an important ally for the victory of AIADMK, would later merge with

, who would later support DMK led front in future elections. The left parties would also end up joining the DMK led front, leaving the AIADMK coalition after this election.

Seat allotments

Source: Various Sources

DMK-NDA Alliance

AIADMK-INC Alliance

Opinion polling

Exit polls

Results

Results by Pre-Poll Alliance

2001 tamil nadu legislative election map by parties

, - ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;vertical-align:top;" , Alliance/Party !style="width:4px" , ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , Seats won ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , Change ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , Popular Vote ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , Vote % ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , Adj. %^‡ , - ! style="background-color:#009900; color:white", AIADMK+ alliance ! style="background-color: " , , 196 , +138 , 14,043,980 , style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" colspan=2 , 50.1% , - ,

AIADMK The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (; AIADMK) is an Indian regional political party with great influence in the state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry. It is a Dravidian party founded by the former chief mini ...

! style="background-color: #008000" , , 132 , +127 , 8,815,387 , 31.4% , 52.1% , - , TMC(M) ! style="background-color: #008080" , , 23 , -15 , 1,885,726 , 6.7% , 47.5% , - , PMK ! style="background-color: #800080" , , 20 , +16 , 1,557,500 , 5.6% , 46.8% , - , INC ! style="background-color: #00FFFF" , , 7 , +7 , 696,205 , 2.5% , 45.4% , - ,

CPI(M) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)/CPIM/CPM) is a Marxist–Leninist communist political party in India. It is the largest communist party of India in terms of membership and electoral seats and one of the nat ...

! style="background-color: #000080" , , 6 , +4 , 470,736 , 1.7% , 48.2% , - , CPI ! style="background-color: #0000FF" , , 5 , -3 , 444,710 , 1.6% , 48.5% , - , IND ! style="background-color: Black" , , 2 , +2 , 103,971 , 0.4% , 46.6% , - ,

AIFB The All India Forward Bloc ( AIFB) is a left-wing nationalist political party in India. It emerged as a faction within the Indian National Congress in 1939, led by Subhas Chandra Bose. The party re-established as an independent political party a ...

! style="background-color: #800000" , , 1 , +1 , 39,248 , 0.1% , 43.3% , - , MUL ! style="background-color: " , , 0 , -1 , 30,497 , 0.1% , 41.7% , - ! style="background-color:#FF0000; color:white", DMK+ alliance ! style="background-color: Red" , , 37 , -138 , 10,841,157 , style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" colspan=2 , 38.7% , - , DMK ! style="background-color: Red" , , 31 , -142 , 8,669,864 , 30.9% , 39.0% , - ,

! style="background-color: " , , 4 , +3 , 895,352 , 3.2% , 38.7% , - , MADMK ! style="background-color: #FFFF00" , , 2 , +1 , 129,474 , 0.5% , 37.1% , - , PT ! style="background-color: " , , 0 , – , 355,171 , 1.3% , 33.8% , - , MTD ! style="background-color: " , , 0 , – , 257,126 , 0.9% , 40.9% , - , PNK ! style="background-color: " , , 0 , – , 196,740 , 0.7% , 33.6% , - , MGRK ! style="background-color: " , , 0 , – , 136,916 , 0.5% , 40.8% , - , TB ! style="background-color: " , , 0 , – , 45,002 , 0.2% , 40.0% , - , CNMK ! style="background-color: " , , 0 , – , 40,421 , 0.1% , 32.4% , - , IND ! style="background-color: " , , 0 , – , 115,091 , 0.4% , 36.7% , - ! style="background-color:Black; color:white", Others ! style="background-color: Black" , , 1 , – , 3,192,598 , style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" colspan=2 , 11.4% , - ,

MDMK The Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam ( 'Renaissance Dravidian Progressive Federation') is a political party active in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. It was established by Vaiko in 1994 after he left the Dravida Munnetra ...

! style="background-color: " , , 0 , – , 1,304,469 , 4.7% , 5.1% , - , IND ! style="background-color: #4d4d4d" , , 1 , – , 1,509,378 , 6.2% , 6.3% , - , style="text-align:center;" , Total ! style="background-color: " , , 234 , – , 28,037,314 , 100% , – , - Note: Parties that contested under "rising-sun" or "two-leaves" symbol are listed as DMK or AIADMK respectively. Parties that ran their candidates as independents, (e.g. Indian Uzhavar Uzhaippalar Katchi and Thondar Congress in DMK alliance) are listed as IND for their respective alliance.
‡: Vote % reflects the percentage of votes the party received compared to the entire electorate that voted in this election. Adjusted (Adj.) Vote %, reflects the average % of votes the party received per constituency that they contested.
Sources: Election Commission of India and Rediff Newspaper

Constituency wise results

* Thanga Tamilselvan, AIADMK legislator from Andipatti, resigned his seat in 2002, to enable Jayalalithaa to contest here. This enabled her to win in a by election in Andipatti, and be Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. She succeeded

who took over as chief minister for 6 months, until Jayalalithaa's corruption charges were cleared in court. * Due to the death of V. Perumal, actor turned politician

Radha Ravi Madras Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan Ravi (born 29 July 1952) is an Indian actor and politician who played supporting roles throughout his career. He is the son of actor M. R. Radha and the uncle of Vasu Vikram and half-brother of Raadhika. He i ...

(son of

M.R. Radha Madras Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan (14 April 1907 – 17 September 1979) was an Indian actor and politician active in Tamil plays and films. He was given the title "Nadigavel" (spearhead of acting) by Periyar E. V. Ramasamy. He mostly playe ...

) was fielded by AIADMK, and defeated the DMK candidate Subramanian, in a by-election, increasing the majority of the AIADMK. * During 31 May 2002, By-election, A. Boovaraghamoorthy of the AIADMK, defeated D. Parvendhan of PMK, which resulted in AIADMK to pick up Acharapakkam (SC).AIADMK wrests two seats (The Hindu newspaper (3 June 2002))
''accessed'' 19 April 2009

References

External links

Election Commission of India

{{Tamil Nadu assembly elections, state=expanded State Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu 2000s in Tamil Nadu

May 2001 events in India