More than being a constituency where national rivals the BJP and Congress are engaged in a direct fight, the battle for the lone Parliamentary seat in Puducherry on April 19 has all the makings of a political cliffhanger. V. Vaithilingam, Congress veteran, sitting MP and two-time Chief Minister, is taking on former Congressman-turned-bete noire, and now an ascendant BJP leader in Home Minister A. Namassivayam in a tight contest.
Fate, it would appear, has convened another face-off between the two leaders who were once in the race to the post of Chief Minister following the Congress-Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) alliance’s win in the 2016 Assembly election - the Congress high command eventually naming former Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office V. Narayanasamy to the coveted chair.
BJP candidate A. Namassivayam. File | Photo Credit: S.S. Kumar
It is not hard to see why Mr. Namassivayam’s candidature has made it a prestige fight for the Congress. As Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief, Mr. Namassivayam played a key role in the Congress-DMK combine’s victory in the 2016 Assembly election, and had made no secret of his frustrations during his time as PWD Minister in the Narayanasamy Cabinet.
Matters blew up a few months before the next Assembly election in January 2021, when Mr. Namassivayam quit as Minister and resigned from the MLA post to walk into the waiting arms of the BJP. This would be the first of several body blows to the Congress as high-profile exits followed and precipitated the collapse of the Narayanasamy government in a trust motion in the Assembly.
After the All India N.R. Congress-BJP government came to power in the 2021 Assembly election, Mr. Namassivayam was allocated the Home portfolio - usually held by the Chief Minister. He was shortly thereafter inducted into the BJP’s national executive, an 80-member decision-making body.
In 2024, as important as it is for the Congress-led INDIA bloc and the BJP-led NDA to put on a strong performance, both fronts must also be acutely aware that the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) – now delinked from the NDA alliance – presents a third force capable of tilting the scales to an extent, disproportionate to its vote share or lack of legislative representation, especially if the race gets tight.
In contrast to the INDIA and NDA fronts which opted for political stature and experience in determining candidature, the AIADMK has pitched a new face and fielded its youth wing secretary G. Thamizhvendhan, who hails from the fisher community.
The Naam Tamilar Katchi’s R. Menaga, a Siddha practitioner, is among the three women in a field of 26 candidates who are seeking a mandate from an electorate of 10,23,699 lakh voters in a week’s time.
The Congress, notwithstanding remarkable electoral statistics from the past – direct wins in 10 out of 14 previous Parliamentary elections and two wins by allies AIADMK (1977) and PMK (2004), has its work cut out as it tries to regain prominence after the painful double blow in 2021. Then, even before the Congress could fully get over the fall of the Narayanasamy government in February, further ignominy ensued in the Assembly election when the party suffered its worst-ever electoral drubbing in a place considered a bastion.
Several of its Ministers bit the dust even as prominent defectors set up big wins and paved the way for the first AINRC-BJP NDA government to assume power in Puducherry in May. Eventually, when the dust cleared, the Congress was left holding just two MLA seats, having contested in 15 places. It even ceded the space of principal Opposition to its ally, the DMK with six legislators in the 30-member House of elected representatives.
And though Mr. Vaithilingam won in 2019 by a record margin of about 1.97 lakh votes over his AINRC rival and political greenhorn K. Narayanasamy, a victory that stood out amid morale-hurting losses for the Congress in the national level, he is locking horns with a tougher opponent in Mr. Namassivayam, who wields considerable clout with the significant Vanniyar community.
Apart from banking on a Dalit-minority vote consolidation with support of allies – the DMK, Left and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) – the Congress is also hoping the solo run of the AIADMK, unlike in 2019 when it was in the NDA fold, would offset any increased consolidation of Vanniyar votes as two influential leaders from the community, Mr. Namassivayam and Chief Minister N. Rangaswamy, now work in tandem. However, the Left in Mahe (the Union Territory’s enclave near Kozhikode with an electorate of about 30,000) refusing to support Mr. Vaithilingam, in a spillover of the Congress-Left rivalry in Kerala, is a concern.
Meanwhile, as the rival fronts hit the campaign trail, the promise of Statehood in the DMK manifesto released by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, has pitchforked the issue into the centre stage yet again. It also sparked off a blame game between the Congress and the AINRC-BJP as no substantive progress had been made all these years on a long-standing popular aspiration endorsed by 16 unanimous resolutions in the Assembly.
Mr. Namassivayam too has stated his resolve to personally take up the Statehood demand with the Prime Minister. When the Centre’s position on not according Statehood was pointed out, he said: “Certain decisions are taken based on the then prevailing situation. That doesn’t mean it cannot be reconsidered. I will take the Statehood issue in the right direction.”
Mr. Rangasamy, while campaigning for Mr. Namassivayam, has also expressed confidence that concurrent NDA regimes at the Centre and Puducherry brightened prospects for obtaining Statehood and overall development. “Puducherry will benefit by electing a Lok Sabha member aligned with the ruling dispensation at the Centre”, he told a rally.
The Congress has also tied the Statehood demand not just to access to the divisible pool of taxes determined by the Central Finance Commission but to the broader question of autonomy. It has flagged former CM Narayanasamy’s tussles with then Lieutenant-Governor Kiran Bedi and the alleged “parallel governance” and superseding of the Cabinet by another Lt.-Governor, Tamilisai Soundararajan, during the NDA rule.
While the NDA has claimed that the government was fulfilling all its promises, especially the 10% reservation for government school students in medical colleges, the Opposition has been hitting out at the government for reneging on commitments and letting down voters in “three years of misrule”. The Opposition is highlighting the failure to reopen ration shops, shuttering of government enterprises, including legacy mills, lack of job creation, suspension of flights, and deteriorating law and order.
Mr. Vaithilingam has been raising issues of national and local importance on the campaign. At one rally he said that people across the country are looking for a change as they understood the folly of electing BJP at the Centre and in Puducherry. Attacking the NDA led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “using religion to cover failures”, rising unemployment, and weakening of democratic institutions, the Congress candidate also assailed the AINRC-BJP government in Puducherry for its failure to prevent the Centre’s move to privatise the Electricity Department and transfer ownership of Karaikal port to a private entity.
For a Congress grappling with existential challenges, a win goes far beyond sweet revenge as it could mark the beginning of a comeback. For the BJP, which now has six elected MLAs, three nominated MLAs, and a Rajya Sabha MP from the Union Territory, adding a Lok Sabha seat to its expanding kitty will mark another step towards cultivating a sphere of political sway in the region.
