DMK candidate DM Kathir Anand has won the by-election to the Vellore Lok Sabha constituency, defeating his AIADMK rival AC Shanmugam by a narrow margin of 8141 votes.

Vellore did not vote with the other 38 seats in Tamil Nadu in April, after the Election Commission cancelled polling following the seizure of a huge amount of cash in the run-up to the election.

Polling finally took place on Monday 5 August. The counting for the seat on Friday 9 August, turned out to be a nail-biting affair with the DMK and AIADMK taking the lead at different points of time. However, in the end DMK’s Kathir Anand emerged victorious by just 0.8 percent votes. The only ‘alternative’ party in the fray was Seeman’s NTK, which secured 2.6 percent votes.

Anand is the son of veteran DMK leader and nine-time MLA Duraimurugan, who was also a close confidante of late DMK patriarch K Karunanidhi. Shanmugam, the founder of the New Justice Party, has been part of the BJP in the past and contested this election under the AIADMK’s symbol.