The Fifteenth Legislative Assembly Election was held on 16 May 2016 for the 232 seats (except Thanjavur and Aravakurichi for which held on 26 October 2016) of the Legislative Assembly in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. The AIADMK under J. Jayalalithaa won the elections and became the first ruling party to be re-elected in Tamil Nadu since 1984, though with a simple majority.^[1] The DMK won half of the seats it contested but its allies performed poorly; notably, the Indian National Congress won 16% of the seats they contested, and the alliance lost due to its poor performance.^[2][3][4][5] The votes were counted on 19 May 2016.^[6] In the previous election in 2011, AIADMK, under the leadership of Jayalalithaa, won a thumping majority and formed the government, while DMDK chief Vijayakanth served as the Leader of Opposition until January 2016. This was the last election that J. Jayalalithaa and M. Karunanidhi contested, as they both died later that year and 2018 respectively.

Quick Facts All 234 elected seats in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly 118 seats needed for a majority, Turnout ...

2016 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election

← 2011 16 May 2016 (2016-05-16) (232 Seats) 19 November 2016 (2 Seats) 2021 →
All 234 elected seats in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly 118 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	74.81% ( 3.48%)
First party Second party   Leader J. Jayalalithaa M. Karunanidhi Party AIADMK DMK Alliance Unallied UPA+DPA Leader since 1989 1969 Leader's seat Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar Thiruvarur Last election 203 seats (alliance) 31 seats (alliance) Seats won 136 98 Seat change 67 67 Popular vote 17,617,060 17,175,374 Percentage 40.88% 39.85% Swing 10.14% 0.35%
Chief Minister before election J. Jayalalithaa AIADMK Elected Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa AIADMK

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By the requirement, state assembly election must be held at an interval of five years or whenever it is dissolved by the president. The previous election, to the 14th legislative assembly, was conducted 13 April 2011 and its term would have naturally expired on 22 May 2016. The election to the 15th legislative assembly was organised and conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) and was held in a single phase on 16 May 2016. There were over 5.79 crore voters in the electoral rolls and 65,616 polling stations in Tamil Nadu.^[7]

A special purification drive of electoral rolls between 15 and 29 February 2016 in all poll-bound States including Tamil Nadu was held, in which door-to-door verification was undertaken involving booth-level agents. On 12 February 2016, Election Commission of India announced that 17 assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu will have Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines attached along with EVMs.^[8] Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines will be in place in 4,000 booths.^[9]

At the 2011 India census, Tamil Nadu had a population of 7,21,47,030. A total of 1,44,38,445 people constituting 20.01% of the total population belonged to Scheduled Castes (SC) and 7,94,697 people constituting 1.10% of the population belonged to Scheduled tribes (ST).^[12][13][14] Other Backward Classes (OBCs) form 68% of the population.^[15] As per the religious census of 2011, Tamil Nadu had 87.6% Hindus, 5.9% Muslims, 6.1% Christians, 0.1% Jains and 0.3% following other religions or no religion.^[16]

The elections were held on 16 May 2016,^[17] with vote counting taking place on 19 May.^[18] The elections in Kerala and Puducherry also took place on 16 May^[19] but polling in two of the Tamil Nadu constituencies was postponed due to reports of voters being bribed.^[20]

To ensure that the electorate exercise their right to vote, the Election Commission of India (ECI) launched their own campaign in Tamil Nadu. The Chief Electoral Officer for the Tamil Nadu assembly elections, Rajesh Lakhoni, utilised social media platforms by creating memes and tweets themed around films, which have a huge reach in Tamil Nadu. Additionally, the Election Commission also recruited media personalities Suriya, Ashwin and Karthik, whose campaigning videos were filmed and shared on social media.^[21] The Election Commission also partnered with Twitter, for the first time in India, to boost its #TN100Percent hashtag campaign. Twitter users who have made use of the hashtag will be reminded to vote on the day of voting.^[22] Twitter and Facebook collaborated with ECI in its awareness campaign on striving for 100 per cent voting in the polls.^[23][24]

On 4 April, AIADMK released its candidate list for Tamil Nadu.^[29] On 14 April, DMK released its candidate list for Tamil Nadu.^[30]

Gopi Shankar Madurai, a 25 years old gender activist made a bid to contest as one of the youngest candidates in the Tamil Nadu Assembly election and also the first openly Intersex & Genderqueer person to do so. Gopi contested on the ticket of newly launched outfit Anaithu Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) for Madurai North. He secured 14th place out of 21 candidates.^{[31][32][33][34]}

DMK released its election manifesto on 10 April 2016.^[35][36] Bharatiya Janata Party released its election manifesto on 21 April 2016.^[37] On 23 March 2016, Naam Tamilar Katchi published its 316-page election manifesto 2016, a complete plan to develop Tamil Nadu.^[38][39] Tamil Nadu Congress Committee released its election manifesto on 27 April 2016.^[40] Pattali Makkal Katchi released its draft election manifesto on 15 September 2015 and final election manifesto on 15 April 2016.^[41] AIADMK released its election manifesto on 5 May 2016.^{[42] [43]}

Voter turnout for the 232 constituencies on 16 May was 74.81%.^[44] Parts of Tamil Nadu received heavy rain on the polling day, but it did not deter voters from turning out to cast their votes. While the highest voter turn out was in Dharmapuri constituency recording 85% while the lowest voter turnout was in the capital of Tamil Nadu, Chennai recording 55%. Male voter turnout was 74.15% and female voter turnout was 74.33%.^[45][46]

The ruling AIADMK, beating most of the exit polls,^[53][54] was able to retain power with a comfortable majority and became the first party to win consecutive elections since 1984, a feat achieved by M. G. Ramachandran. Jayalalithaa bucked Anti-incumbency trend and cyclic change of governments in the state that hadn't voted back a government in last three decades.^[55][56][57]

Vote share

Vote share by party/alliance

  AIADMK (40.88%)

  DPA (39.85%)

  PWF (6.1%)

  PMK (5.36%)

  NDA (2.86%)

  Others (7.81%)

More information Party/Alliance, Votes ...

Summary of the 2016 Tamil Nadu legislative election^[58]

Party/Alliance				Votes	%	Seats
						Contested	Won	+/-
	All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)			17,806,490	40.88%	234	136	14
	DPA		Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)	13,670,511	31.39%	178	89	66
			Indian National Congress	2,774,075	6.47%	41	8	3
			Indian Union Muslim League	313,808	0.73%	5	1	1
			Puthiya Tamilagam	219,830	0.51%	4	0	2
			Manithaneya Makkal Katchi	197,150	0.46%	4	0	2
		Total		17,175,374	39.85	234	98	66
	People's Welfare Alliance (PWF)		Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam	1,037,431	2.41%	105	0	20
			Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam	373,713	0.87%	28	0
			Communist Party of India	340,290	0.79%	25	0	9
			Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi	331,849	0.77%	25	0
			Communist Party of India (Marxist)	307,303	0.72%	25	0	10
			Tamil Maanila Congress	230,711	0.54%	26	0
		Total		2,621,297	6.1	234	0	48
	Pattali Makkal Katchi			2,302,564	5.36%	234	0	3
	Bharatiya Janata Party			1,235,660	2.86%	234	0
	Naam Tamilar Katchi			460,089	1.07%	234	0
	Kongunadu Makkal Desia Katchi			167,560	0.39%	72	0
	Bahujan Samaj Party			97,823	0.23%	n/a	0
	Social Democratic Party of India			65,978	0.15%	n/a	0
	Independents			617,907	1.44%	234	0
	None of the above			5,65,077	1.31%	234	–	–
Total				4,35,56,184	100.00	-	234	-
Valid votes				4,35,56,184	99.93
Invalid votes				29,507	0.07
Votes cast / turnout				4,35,85,691	74.81
Abstentions				1,46,74,574	25.19
Registered voters				5,82,60,506

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Election to two assembly constituencies were cancelled by the Election Commission on confirmed reports of bribing voters in Aravakurichi and Thanjavur. Elections were held later there on 26 October 2016 ^[59][60]

On 3 May, News 7 and Dinamalar released an opinion poll giving an edge for DMK over AIADMK. But some editions of Dinamalar carried a statement on the first page distancing itself from the surveys.^[62] In an instance VVPAT was helpful in resolving an issue pertaining to a tally of votes in Kancheepuram Assembly constituency as the number of votes entered in the Form 17C of a polling booth and the total number of votes recorded in the EVM control unit of that booth did not tally.^[63]

On 26 October 2016, the Election Commission announced that the election for Thiruparankundram, Aravakurichi and Thanjavur constituencies would be held on 19 November 2016.^[67] The outcome was:^{[citation needed]}

• Elections in India
• 2016 elections in India