New Delhi: DMK chief M Karunanidhi emerged the No. 1 choice for chief ministership in Tamil Nadu after a neck-and-neck battle in the crucial Assembly elections, which saw the battle for power going down to the wire till the last moment.
However, the veteran Dravidian leader seems to have mustered enough clout during the poll campaign which put him head and shoulder above his closest rival anc current Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in a leadership survey.
The survey conducted as part of the CNN-IBN-Hindu exit poll, carried out by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, said as many as 41 per cent of those who took part in the survey mentioned Karunanidhi as their first preference to lead the state.
AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa came second with 35 per cent votes while DMDK's Vijaykanth finished third with 10 per cent votes. Karunanidhi's son Stalin was fourth with 1 per cent votes.
MK Stalin, the DMK Deputy General Secretary, has already made it clear that he was not in the race for the Chief Ministership.
"DMK is a democratic party. There is no question of succession in a democratic party. Anyway, I am not in the race," said Stalin, widely believed to be his father M Karunanidhi's succesor as party chief.
Talking to reporters after casting his vote, he said on Monday that he was confident that the DMK would gain an absolute majority on its own and there would not be any need for a coalition government in the state.
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