‘Congress has a better chance in the upcoming elections’.
New Delhi: Amid the Puducherry crisis where the Congress-led government lost its majority in the Assembly, political experts believe that there are many chief ministerial candidates in the Opposition parties. After Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy and his Cabinet colleagues resigned, the President gave the green light to President’s rule in Union Territory.
With the resignation of A. John Kumar, a former trusted aide of Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy, the Pudicherry government faced a political crisis and forced the Congress to prove its majority in the Assembly. Before the resignation of John Kumar, A. Namassivayam, the former Puducherry Pradesh Congress Committee president, had also resigned from the MLA post and was expelled from the party for anti-party activities.
Tharasu Shyam, a political analyst, told The Sunday Guardian, “I think the Congress has a better chance in the upcoming elections; there are too many leaders in Opposition parties eyeing the CM chair. Namassivayam was the strong contender for the CM post when he was in Congress. Now, he has joined hands with the BJP and wishes to become the CM. In All India NR Congress, N. Rangaswamy, a former CM and former Congress man, also wants to become CM. The AIADMK may also set their eyes on the CM post because the first AIADMK CM was Subramanyan Ramaswamy and not M.G. Ramachandran. The alliance may not hold together for a long time because of their vested interest.”
He further told The Sunday Guardian, “Due to this, I believe that the Congress has an advantage as the votes would split between the Congress and anti-Congress votes in Puducherry.”
Kolahala Srenivaas, a senior journalist, told The Sunday Guardian, “Since the initial days of the government, Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi put a check on welfare distribution. Bedi wanted the government to adopt Direct Benefit Transfer scheme and not personal distribution of the schemes. The Congress government was unhappy with the L-G over this issue. She wanted that the government operate in a transparent manner.”
Talking about Narayanasamy’s complain to Rahul Gandhi during his visit to Puducherry, Srenivaas told The Sunday Guardian, “A woman from fisher community complained to Rahul Gandhi about the government’s inability to help the community during Cyclone Nivar in December 2020. Instead, Narayanasamy translated what the woman said to mean that she had praised his work during the cyclone. So, this is the reason that there is a lot of resentment against the government within the people.”
Speaking about the Congress losing ground in Puducherry, Shyam told The Sunday Guardian, “Because the constituency size is small, the national political parties and their politics were only prevalent in Puducherry. The condition of the Congress worsened in Puducherry because Namassivayam came out of the party. The party could not come to terms with the leader.”