Trouble brewing in BJP's Puducherry contingent as MLAs raise banner of revolt

Chennai: Trouble is brewing in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Puducherry with seven MLAs, including three independents and a nominated member, raising a banner of revolt against Home Minister A Namassivayam, who lost the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls.

The MLAs –A John Kumar, his son Richard John Kumar, P M L Kalyanasundaram (all BJP), P Angalane, G Srinivas Ashok, and M Sivasankaran (independents) and K Venkatesan (nominated member) – are camping in New Delhi for the past few days to impress upon the High Command to “accede” to their demands.

The seven legislators managed to meet BJP chief and Union Health Minister J P Nadda, who is believed to have given a patient hearing to them but didn’t give any assurance on their demands.

The MLAs’ demands include removal of Namassivayam and A K Sai J Saravana Kumar from the Cabinet, two MLAs from the BJP to be their successors, and “lucrative posts” in the government for independent MLAs. They also want accountability fixed for the 2024 Lok Sabha poll defeat.

John Kumar, who quit the Congress on the eve of the 2021 elections along with Namassivayam to join the BJP, told DH that their intention was not to “destabilise” Chief Minister N R Rangasamy’s government but to push the Central leaders to “honour the commitment made in 2021” that everyone will be given a chance to be ministers on rotation basis.

“Six of us won on the BJP ticket in 2021. While Namassivayam and Kumar were made ministers, Embalam R Selvam was elected as the Speaker, leaving three of us in the lurch. The BJP should either replace the incumbents with two of us or exit the government and provide outside support,” John Kumar, a close aide of lottery baron Santiago Martin, said.

Martin’s Future Gaming and Hotel Services had in March topped the list of companies that bought electoral bonds, declared illegal by the Supreme Court last month, to be donated to political parties.

BJP, which had marginal presence in Puducherry, engineered defections in the Congress in February 2021 culminating in the fall of the then Congress government led by V Narayanasamy. Several Congress leaders jumped ship to BJP before the 2021 elections and the party managed to win six seats in the 30-member assembly and joined the Rangasamy government.

The major complaint of the MLA is against Namassivayam’s “style of functioning” and his losing the Lok Sabha polls by missing a “golden chance” of the BJP opening its account in Parliament from Puducherry. “He (Namassivayam) is to be blamed for the defeat. We are not very happy with the way the Home Minister ran the campaign,” he said.

John Kumar said the BJP should walk out of the government and support from outside so that it can come to power on its own in Puducherry. “If we have to win 2026, we have to start preparing from now. We need to fulfill the promises made to independent MLAs before enlisting their support,” he added.