166. Tiruchirapalli-I

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam held the seat; the winning margin narrowed from 36.3% to 1.3%.

• Won on a lower shareIts own vote share fell 20.5% — it held because the rest of the vote was more divided.
• New challengerMUL (MUL) finished second with 41.7% — it did not contest here in 1996.
• Vote fragmentedThe top two took only 84.6% between them, down from 90.6% — the field split more ways.

Written from the constituency figures by a fixed set of rules — no language model.