Jayalalithaa surges ahead in by-poll vote count

Chennai: Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa took a massive lead over her nearest rival, CPI's C. Mahendran at the end of first round of vote count on Tuesday in the Radhakrishnan Nagar assembly seat by-election.

Counting of votes began at 8 a.m.

At the end of the first round, Jayalalithaa got 9,562 votes (including postal votes), while Communist Party of India's (CPI) candidate C. Mahendran secured 930 votes.

Social activist K.R. Ramaswamy, popularly known as `Traffic Ramaswamy', got 289 votes.

Out of the 11,188 votes counted in the first round, 174 voters opted for NOTA (none of the above).