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BJP will contest lone Puducherry Lok Sabha seat, says Rangasamy
Puducherry chief minister and All India NR Congress (AINRC) president N Rangasamy on Sunday announced that their ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will contest in the lone Lok Sabha seat in the union territory
Puducherry chief minister and All India NR Congress (AINRC) president N Rangasamy on Sunday announced that their ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will contest in the lone Lok Sabha seat in the union territory. “We have decided to allot Puducherry’s seat to the BJP for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. They will announce their candidate soon,” Rangasamy said. His statement comes a day after the BJP on Saturday released its first list of 195 candidates including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah. Tamil Nadu and Puducherry did not figure in this list.
The Puducherry seat is currently held by Congress MP V Vaithilingam. This time too, the Congress is likely to contest in Puducherry as part of Tamil Nadu’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc.
BJP last contested in Puducherry’s Lok Sabha seat in 2004 and lost to a candidate from Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK). In the previous general elections in 2019, Vaithilingam won against an AINRC candidate. In 2014, the Lok Sabha seat was won by AINRC’s R Radhakrishnan beating a Congress candidate.
AINRC-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) formed the government in the union territory of Puducherry in May 2021 after toppling the Congress government led by V Narayanasamy in January that year.
BJP, which had no presence in the region until now, had secured six out of the 30 assembly seats. CM Rangasamy’s cabinet has ministers from the BJP. Rangasamy, a veteran politician, was formerly with the Congress before quitting in 2011 to float AINRC and become the CM after winning the assembly elections held that year. Lieutenant governor of Puducherry and governor of Telangana Tamilisai Soundararajan on Sunday told reporters that the BJP high command will decide if she will contest in the upcoming elections.
Meanwhile, in Tamil Nadu, the INDIA block led by DMK is continuing to have several rounds of talks with Congress and other allies over seat sharing. So far the DMK has allotted two seats each to the CPI and CPM and one seat each to the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and Kongunadu Makkal Desiya Katchi (KMDK).
