Puducherry elections: Congress banks on sympathy as BJP looks to gain hold

While Rangasamy has declared himself as the chief ministerial candidate, the BJP has not endorsed it.

Puducherry will vote to elect a new government on April 6 following the collapse of the previous Congress-led administration on February 22 due to a spate of resignations. It is being seen as a battle between the wounded Congress party and the opposition led by a resurgent former chief minister N Rangasamy who is in alliance with the BJP, the party accused of engineering the previous government’s collapse by ‘purchasing’ and ‘threatening’ Congress MLAs.

N Rangasamy has already declared himself the chief ministerial candidate of his party-led opposition coalition including the BJP.  (PTI)

The only Congress government in the South fell following seven dramatic resignations in a span of two weeks with two of those legislators joining the BJP. The Congress hopes the sympathy factor would return it to power in the Union Territory.

Puducherry has 30 assembly seats plus three nominated seats with an electorate of 10.03 lakh. Congress is contesting in 14 constituencies- seven fewer than the 2016 assembly polls. The remaining seats have been allotted to allies DMK (13) and the VCK (1) and CPI (1). V Narayanasamy, who was forced to resign after his government lost the floor test in March, has not been fielded.

This has led to opposition claiming that the Congress was on the backfoot and in disarray. The opposition members and those who quit the Congress had blamed Narayanasamy for their exit.

The Rangasamy-led All India NR Congress (AINRC), which is leading the opposition coalition, is contesting on 16 seats and has allotted nine seats to the BJP. The national party has no presence in the tiny UT apart from the three nominated MLAs—who tilted the balance against the Congress in the assembly. The BJP is determined to make inroads here and national leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and party president J P Nadda have consistently campaigned here for the party’s growth. The AIADMK, which is in the opposition alliance, will contest on five seats.

But the opposition is divided over its chief ministerial candidate. While Rangasamy has declared himself as the chief ministerial candidate, the BJP has not endorsed it. “AINRC has announced their chief ministerial candidate but NDA will decide the candidate for chief minister only after the elections are over,” said BJP Puducherry election in-charge Nirmal Surana. “We will sweep the elections. That’s what all surveys are predicting and it’s what people want.”

The dispute over the CM candidate here is similar to the back and forth seen in Tamil Nadu, where the BJP faced flak from the AIADMK for taking over three months to endorse chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami as the CM face of the alliance in January 2021, reversing its stand that it would decide on the matter after the elections.

In Puducherry, the BJP will have to assuage Rangasamy, a veteran politician, while managing ambitions of the Congress rebels. Rangasamy was once with the Congress, before quitting in 2011 to float AINRC and become the CM after winning the assembly elections held that year.

In a major issue in the polls, Madras high court has ordered a probe into allegations that BJP’s Puducherry unit accessed and used Aadhar-linked mobile numbers for targeted election campaigning. Congress has also urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to disqualify BJP candidates for alleged violation of the model code of conduct. “People of Puducherry are against the BJP and will support us,” says RKR Anantharaman, former government whip and incumbent candidate from Manavel constituency. “Puducherry is secular and the Hindutva ideology won’t work here,” he said.

While the Congress accuses the BJP-led Centre of interfering in Puducherry government’s functioning, stalling welfare schemes using Kiran Bedi as the UT’s lieutenant governor (L-G). The BJP in turn alleges that the Narayanasamy-led government misappropriated funds. “He only served the Congress high-command in Delhi and not the people of Puducherry,” said Modi at a public meeting in the UT two days after the government was dissolved.

Ahead of the floor-test, in a move that came as a surprise, Bedi was shunted out and Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan was given additional responsibility of Puducherry. Soundararajan, formerly BJP chief of Tamil Nadu, is seen as an amiable person as opposed to Bedi. The UT is currently under the President’s rule until the next government is elected.