More to Vaithilingam’s cycle ride than meets the eye

Larger role planned for two-time CM by Congress high command, say sources

Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy receiving Speaker V. Vaithilingam at the Assembly.

Speaker V. Vaithilingam’s cycle ride from his residence at Kandappa Mudaliar Street to the Legislative Assembly was not just a symbolic protest merely to highlight the rise in prices of petroleum products as it is made out to be.

“The fuel price has been spiralling for the last several months. It is part of the government’s austerity measures,” quipped the seasoned politician when he was confronted by reporters at the Assembly after being received by Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy.

However, the protest was more symbolic in the political sense as the cycle ride had added credence to the buzz around the Congress party’s likely candidate for the Lok Sabha polls.

Highly placed sources in the party told

The Hindu that a larger role for the two-time Chief Minister was discussed by the high command when Mr. Narayanasamy was parachuted from national politics for the Chief Minister’s post after the Congress-DMK combine came to power in the last Assembly elections.

In their more than three decades of active political life with the Congress party, Mr Vaithilingam had remained confined to UT, while the Chief Minister was wedded to national politics.

Though it was too early to predict, sources in the party said the All India Congress Committee would field Mr Vaithilingam as its nominee in the Lok Sabha polls due to be held early next year.

“As of now, he is the frontrunner. In the absence of shortage of candidates with a larger appeal, he will fit as the party’s nominee for the Lok Sabha polls. Rise in prices of fuel will be a key issue in the parliamentary polls. So the cycle ride was his poll pitch,” said a party insider.

However, another leader said his present position as Speaker would make his candidature a trickish issue.

“He will have to resign the post and contest,” said the leader.

Coming from a family of freedom fighters, Mr Vaithilingam was credited with running a stable government from 1991 to 1996. Again, he became the Chief Minister for three years in 2008. Soft spoken and affable, Mr Vaithilingam represented the Nettapakkam constituency from 1980 to 2006. After the constituency was declared reserved, he moved to the urban constituency of Kamaraj Nagar, which he represents from 2011.