JOIN USWhen giants lock horns for supremacy
A total of 7.4 lakh voters come under this constituency with places spread quite far from each other: Mahe (Kerala), Yelam (Andhra Pradesh), Karaikal (Near Nagapattinam) and Pondicherry City. The Congress is the ruling party in this UT. It has 30 MLAs.
Despite the bitter factional fights within the Congress, the fact that Pondicherry has traditionally been a Congress stronghold and the alliance with the DMK look enough to procure a big win for Narayanaswamy.
Mercifully, unlike the scene within the Congress, the DMK cadres are enthusiastically working as a team to ensure the triumph of the Congressman.
DMK treasurer and rabble-rouser M K Stalin received a tumultuous welcome on Friday evening at Kuvayar Palayam and other places where he went in an open jeep to seek votes for his ally’s candidate. Reminiscent of his orator father M Karunanidhi’s ability to touch a chord with the masses with his passionate speeches, Stalin said: “I urge you to vote for the ‘hand’ with all humility, love and affection and as a right which is due to me from the people of Pondicherry. I ask you for votes as a child of your family and a child of Kalaignar.” The crowd went berserk with applause and showered petals on him.
A veteran
Narayanaswamy is no stranger to politics and is now into his third term as a Rajya Sabha MP. The fact that he wields tremendous political clout at the Centre and can get big things done for Pondicherry is a major plus point for him. He also exercised his influence by installing his loyalist, V Vaithyalingam, as chief minister and forcing N Rangaswamy to step down. The open secret is that the former chief minister and his large group of supporters are not taking part in any campaigning and are praying for the victory of the opposition candidate.
Meanwhile, Prof M Ramadass has an intellectual background and banks heavily on his “unparalleled achievements” during his present stint to carry him through. This head of the department of Economics at Pondicherry University thrashed the BJP’s Lalitha Kumaramangalam (late Rangarajan Kumaramangalam’s sister) by 70,000 votes to become MP in 2004. The BJP is nowhere in contention this time.
Ramadass says: “I am responsible for Pondicherry City getting the P-2 privileged status from the Centre. This has ensured a 20 per cent HRA for all government employees here.” On the educational front, he claims that the status of an ‘institute of national excellence’ that JIPMER was accorded to be on par with AIIMS (Delhi) and PGI (Chandigarh) were because of him.