The counting, which would be of 18 rounds across 258 booths, started on Sunday morning.
Dhinakaran, who is contesting as an independent candidate after the Edappadi K Palaniswami-O Panneerselvam faction of AIADMK won the Two Leaves symbol, secured 64,984 votes, as against 33,446 votes for E Madhusudhanan, a senior leader of AIADMK, and 17,145 votes for N Maruthu Ganesh of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Karu Nagarajan secured 408