AIADMK has rejoined the NDA as a junior partner despite a considerable presence in the political landscape of UT.
The recent political churn in Puducherry, altering the positions of the Congress and the All India NR Congress, has also led to opposite fortunes for the two Dravidian parties – the AIADMK and the DMK.
The AIADMK has been left with fewer seats in view of the BJP playing a vocal role in the NDA, including AINRC, with the DMK working hard to secure a greater share of tickets with the Congress. The Congress will now contest six seats compared to 2016, while DMK will field 13 candidates and the Vice Chancellor and CPI one each.
AIADMK has rejoined the NDA as a junior partner despite a considerable presence in the political landscape of UT. AINRC will contest 16 seats, while BJP Puducherry in-charge Nirmal Kumar Surana has indicated that AIADMK can be given only four constituencies, while the National Party will hold 10 seats.
“We have conveyed our displeasure to the top leadership in Chennai. We have a high command MLA told that we have no choice but to take whatever decision the high command has taken Hindu
If the AIADMK eventually gets seven seats, it will be the first time in decades that it will field candidates in single digits.
In 2001, it won three of the 18 seats in alliance with the PMK. Five years later, it won equal seats, fighting in 18 constituencies of the Puducherry Munnetra Congress Company. In 2011, AIADMK won five out of 12 seats in alliance with AINRC.
During the last assembly elections, the Dravidian party won four out of all 30 seats alone and received 13.4% of the votes.
“We have been pushed to a junior partner and a party (BJP), which lost 17 of the 18 seats it had fought in the last, has been slaughtered for being a senior partner. Another AIADMK member said, “We are either in alliance as a junior partner or are contesting as a separate block.”
In contrast, the DMK was a tough bargain after the upheavals in the national party following recent tensions of its top leaders in its senior partner, the Congress, the Secular Progressive Alliance.
Despite the DMK’s strike rate being very low in the 2016 assembly – he won two out of nine seats – he is now an important player in the alliance. The Congress had last won 15 out of 21 seats.
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