Alliance or not: The Tamil Nadu factor in Puducherry Assembly polls

Political leaders feel alliances in Tamil Nadu are binding in Puducherry as well, and that is both a blessing and a bane

All eyes are on Tamil Nadu which goes to the polls in April-May next year. But its next door neighbour, the Union Territory of Puducherry, a tiny yet significant chapter in south Indian politics, is too gearing up for elections.

 

In prep, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been the first off the start line. Last week, the party appointed Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya as election in-charge and Arjun Ram Meghwal as co-in-charge to manage the Assembly poll. The BJP with 6 seats in the 33-member Assembly (three MLAs are nominated by the Centre per a law dating back to 1963) is supporting the ruling All India N Rangasamy Congress (AINRC), which has 10 MLAs.

 

For the BJP, after it lost the prized Karnataka in 2023, Puducherry is now the second state (a UT with an Assembly) in south India where it is a partner in the government, apart from Andhra Pradesh. Unlike Kerala, where the BJP's vote share actually dropped from 16 per cent in 2016 to 11.51 per cent in 2021, and Tamil Nadu, where it was unable to make much of a mark (it won four seats but proved to be a liability for the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or AIADMK, its alliance partner), in Puducherry it cobbled an alliance together by conceding chief ministership to AINRC and inviting MLAs from the Congress to join the party and making them ministers (former PWD minister A Namassivayam, for instance, left the Congress and joined the BJP before the 2021 polls and once the party had become part of government, was appointed home minister). It negotiated the position of the speaker as well. 

 

BJP contested on 30 seats in 2016 and lost its deposit in 29. In 2021, it won six. “The Congress should pull up its socks: it is losing its base as well as its organisation to the BJP” says D Ravikumar, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) MP from Tamil Nadu’s Villupuram constituency that is on the Puducherry border.

 

Ravikumar, who is a banker and has worked and lived in neighbouring Puducherry most of his life, says Puducherry politics is a function of alliance politics in Tamil Nadu and virtually mimics Tamil Nadu voting trends. Alliances in Tamil Nadu are binding in Puducherry as well, and that is both a blessing and a bane.

 

“The Tamil Nadu Congress plays a major role in deciding on alliance. We depend on them. We can't even align with any party on our own as the Tamil Nadu Congress doesn't allow that,” V Vaithilingam, Congress leader, former chief minister and currently MP from Puducherry had said in 2021. 

 

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-Congress alliance in Puducherry in 2021 led to a precipitous defeat for the Congress- the party could get only two MLAs. Even with the six of the DMK, six independents who were elected and three nominated MLAS, it could not have formed the government. It could not approach the AINRC because coalition partner DMK would not allow it. When AINRC threatened the BJP and said it had the option of approaching the DMK and its allies to form the government, BJP gave in by offering AINRC chief N. Rangaswamy everything he wanted in return for participation in the government.

 

“I do not see any threat to that alliance in the upcoming poll” says Ravikumar, adding, “The DMK now feels the Congress is a burden it has to carry in Puducherry.”

 

However, he adds that the social structure of Puducherry is such that despite its performance, the BJP will not be able to form a government on its own. It cannot replicate the alliance arrangement it has struck in Tamil Nadu with the AIADMK because that party has little or no traction in Puducherry.

 

Ravikumar recalls the protests that broke out when an attempt was made in 1979 by the then prime minister Morarji Desai and then Tamil Nadu chief minister M G Ramachandran to dismantle the UT status of Puducherry and merge it with the neighbouring state. “The people of Puducherry have never forgotten that. So AIADMK is not popular here” he says.

 

Unlike Tamil Nadu, caste is not an issue in Puducherry. But Puducherry has a 6.2 per cent Christian and six per cent Muslim population. “Watch this space,” says Ravikumar. “As the Congress’ hold in the state weakens, others are eyeing its base”.

 

He cites moves by Jose Charles Martin, the son of Coimbatore-based businessman Santiago Martin, to participate in political functions organised by some BJP MLAs and independents.

 

Santiago Martin is known as the “lottery king” of India. According to the Election Commission of India data posted on its website following an order by the Supreme Court, his company, Future Gaming and Hotel Services Pvt Ltd, bought electoral bonds worth ₹1,368 crore between April 2019 and January 2024. At one recent function, one of the MLAs offered his son Jose his constituency to contest the upcoming election. Martin’s entry in Puducherry politics will upend many electoral calculations.

 

In economic terms, Puducherry is not doing too badly. Lieutenant Governor K Kailasanathan in his speech to the Assembly in March, said, “Puducherry has made impressive achievements in terms of economic growth and poverty alleviation. The size of the economy, in terms of Gross State Domestic Product, has increased by 44.06 per cent during the last five years, achieving an annual average growth rate of 9.56 per cent. The growth rate of the economy, which was -2.21 per cent in 2020-21, has reached 8.81 per cent in 2024-25,” he said, adding the rise in per capita income had put an additional income of ₹15,000 in the hands of every person.

 

“There is no starvation or grinding poverty in Puducherry. Welfare schemes have worked here,” Ravikumar says. “It is mainly a service economy with heavy reliance on fishing and to a lesser degree, agriculture”.

 

If additional railway lines and tourism was supported by the Centre, it would lead to a boom in the state, he says.

 

The eventual goal is statehood, but till then, the party that uses its proximity to the Centre to Puducherry’s advantage is likely to be the most popular.

  Puducherry assembly polls 

Total elected strength 30

MLAs nominated by the centre 3

       

Total strength 33

   

Last election held in May, 2021
Party				2016	2021
All India NR Congress				8	10
Bharatiya Janata Party				0	6
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam				2	6
Independents				1	6
Indian National Congress				15	2
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam 4 0

Source: ECI