Cherry Sour On Pondy Cake

The BJP had a good thing going in Pondicherry after its alliance with N. Rangasamy (in pic) of the AINRC scored a comfortable majority in the 30-member assembly in the recent election. The party eyed the post of deputy chief minister and the plum portfolios of excise and transport. But when alliance leader Rangasamy—invited to form the government following support from his ten MLAs and the BJP’s six—he chose to take oath all alone on May 7 and informed the Lt Governor that his cabinet will follow later. The AINRC leader has not expanded his cabinet so far—more importantly, he has not inducted the BJP’s nominees either.

Since the chief minister got hospitalised for Covid on May 9, the BJP had used his absence to get three more MLAs through the nomination route and also negotiated the support of three of the six Independent legislators. It was a signal to Rangasamy that the BJP had more MLAs (11) compared to AINRC’s 10. It hoped that its numerical superiority would force the chief minister’s hand.

Former Congressman Rangasamy kept his counsel and informed the Lt Governor that cabinet expansion will happen after the pandemic lockdown was over and the Covid cases are brought under control. Looks like a ploy to keep the BJP on tenterhooks and make it shed its big brother attitude. In the meantime, he sent feelers to the Congress (two MLAs) and its ally the DMK, which has six. If the AINRC joins hands with the Congress and the DMK it could command a comfortable majority with the support of three Independents, who are AINRC rebels.

And thus an intense power struggle is exp­ected in the coming weeks as a desperate BJP seeks to get its nominees into the ministry. Its legislature party leader A. Namassivayam had to rush to Delhi to plot his next move even as Rangasamy was happily running the government in solitary splendour. Decision-making has suffered because of this. “Even the decision to extend the lockdown by another week was taken at the instance of the Lt Governor as the chief minister was yet to completely recover from post-Covid effects,” says a senior bureaucrat.

By G.C. Shekhar in Chennai