Early counting trends for the lone Lok Sabha constituency of Puducherry showed Congress candidate V. Vaithilingam set to retain the seat that he won in the 2019 elections, with a record margin of 1.97 lakh votes.
In votes polled in 12 Assembly segments that have been counted, Mr. Vaithilingam, as of noon, was leading by around 31,500 votes over his immediate rival, the ruling BJP’s A. Namassivayam. Votes polled in 18 more Assembly segments are to be counted.
Naam Tamilar Katchi’s R. Menaga and AIADMK candidate G. Thamizhvendhan were a distant third and fourth respectively.
As of 1 pm, around 3.13 lakh votes were counted with about 5 lakh votes remaining to be counted.
