Karu Nagarajan, the BJP's candidate in the RK Nagar bypoll (Photo: Twitter/ANI. NOTE: The image is from a press meet. Nagaraj later spoke exclusively to our reporter, Akshaya Nath.))

"All is money," BJP candidate Karu Nagaraj lamented after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, so used to being an election-winning machine, found itself trailing the NOTA (None Of The Above) option after eight rounds of counting in the RK Nagar bypoll.

"This is not a democratic election," Nagaraj told India Today, as trends showed TTV Dhinakaran, an independent candidate who formerly led the AIADMK as its deputy general secretary, zoomed to a seemingly unassailable lead.

The BJP had 571 votes after eight rounds of counting, but almost 1030 people had clicked on the NOTA option.

Earlier today, BJP MP Subramian Swamy, too, observed that the BJP, "a national ruling party," was performing poorly. He called for accountability.

TN BJP record: A national ruling party gets a quarter of NOTAï¿½??s vote. Time for accountability - Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) December 24, 2017

Earlier today, Karu Nagaraj told a news agency that parties other than the BJP had distributed money. That brazen attempts to commit election fraud were a feature of this election is no secret, as an India Today investigation revealed earlier this week (see below).

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Tamil Nadu politics is domainated by the ruling AIADMK - Jayalalithaa's party - and her longtime arch-rival M Karunanidhi's DMK. Neither party's tally after Round 8 was close to matching Dhinakaran's 39,548 votes. The AIADMK, which was second, only had around 19,000 votes.

A win for TTV Dhinakaran will be seen as a humiliating defeat for the AIADMK. Even as trends showed him leading, the independent claimed the support of AIADMK cadres and said Jayalalithaa's own wishes were with him.

Those words, if backed by RK Nagar's mandate, will feel like a sickening blow for the AIADMK. After all, if that happens, Jayalalithaa's successors in government will have failed to retain her seat - and will need to share the claim to her legacy.

UPDATE, 8:01 PM: After the final round of counting, the BJP had 1417 votes. NOTA: 2373.

(Inputs from ANI)

NOTE: The image of Karu Nagaraj is from a press meet. Nagaraj later spoke exclusively to our reporter, Akshaya Nath.

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WATCH | Biggest expose before RK Nagar bypoll: India Today sting triggers Election Commission probe