Hyderabad: Tuesday (Feb 16) evening was different in Raj Nivas — the official residence of Lt Governor of Puducherry. Neither the staff nor governor Kiran Bedi expected a boot out. Presidential orders were issued. Orders were to relieve the former IPS officer, heralding the entry of Tamilisai Soundararajan, governor of Telangana into the Puducherry scape.
With the rumblings within the ruling dispensation leading to resignations and disqualification of an MLA, the House composition has been altered to equal strength, i.e 14 legislators each. Congress has 10, DMK 3 and one independent backing the party in power. The umbrella Opposition comprises — All India N. R (AINR) Congress with 7 members, AIADMK having 4 members and BJP having 3 legislators.
Politically, the only silver lining in Bedi’s tenure is the nomination of three members to the House. All three are from BJP. Eventually, congress lost its litigation against the nomination in the Supreme Court. A setback compounding for Naryanasamy. The number of opposition is up by three without democratic contest, and have voting powers in the confidence vote as well. The vote of the Speaker VP Sivakolundu will become the decider if the status quo continues through the floor test. Both camps flex their muscle before the media, claiming that they have numbers. The real numbers will be known only on the floor of the House.
Bedi factor
Soon after being parachuted into the union territory, Kiran Bedi took on Narayanasamy on a host of policies. Her missteps began when she picked up the corruption charges against the elected government in the free rice distribution scheme. Congress which initially wanted a direct benefit transfer (DBT) subsidy sensed its mistake and urged Bedi to sign for the free rice scheme instead. However, she decided to retain the DBT system. The union territory has as many as 1,76,134 eligible families. These families which are Below Poverty Line (BPL) had their patriarch’s bank account attached to the family card. In most families, the money credited was spent on liquor instead of rice by the patriarchs.
A compulsory helmet and a huge fine of Rs 1,000 also did not augur well with the populace. Having come with the mandate of making the denizens of the UT BJP friendly, Bedi’s misadventures continued on several fronts.
Bedi’s policy of self-sustenance in the Public Sector Undertakings affected its workers whose livelihood were completely dependent on them. Instead of releasing additional funds, Bedi insisted that sale/trade/business proceeds be used to meet the staff salary in such undertakings. She then stretched to interfere with the day to day functioning of the elected government.
BJP's longing to make inroads in South
Conquering the hearts and minds of Puducherry has always been on the BJP’s agenda. While addressing an assembly election campaign in Karnataka in 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi rechristened Congress as ‘Punjab Puducherry (Gandhi) Parivar’. Soon afterwards Congress, led by Rahul, made a comeback in three states in the Hindi belt — Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, though.
Now in the UT, Congress has effectively channelised the public anger towards Lt Governor by holding a string of protests demanding her removal. They had successfully built the narrative of Bedi being detrimental to the development of Puducherry. Discreetly, the local unit of the BJP was also wishing for Bedi’s removal. They had expressed their disapproval with the party top brass a few times as she was more into building ‘Brand Bedi’ not ‘Brand Modi’.
Way forward
As things did not fan out the BJP way, Bedi was replaced with Tamilisai Soundararajan. Tamilisai Soundararajan who is given an additional charge is the first Tamil to hold this post. She has also dealt the card of ‘People’s Governor’, much to the relief of Puducherry denizens.
“I would not infringe upon the powers of the elected government or interfere in their rights and will function within the realms of the Constitutional framework”, she said, while being sworn in.
It remains to be seen if she would keep her word. Karnataka State-Vice president Nirmal Kumar Surana, union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, Rajyasabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar have been tasked to take care of Puducherry.
The brief is simple. They will have to work to get more turncoats so BJP will have enough candidates in the fray for the ensuing elections. The entire union territory including its other units — Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam, has always been a Congress stronghold. While there is a fair amount of anti-incumbency in play for Narayanasamy, elections here are fought on individual currency rather than as a party. The total size of Puducherry’s electorate is just above 10 lakh, spread across 30 Assembly Constituencies. Villanur seat had 42,329 electors while Orleanpet seat had the fewest voters 24,723. Puducherry’s entire electorate size is that of a Lok Sabha seat in neighbouring Tamil Nadu.
The former French territory has about 5,000 Franco Pondians who have voting rights in the French Elections as well. Unlike Delhi and the recently formed UT of Jammu & Kashmir, the elected government in Puducherry has its ambit over Police, Public Order, Land and Administration.
A snap poll is what it looks like on the cards if the government falls. It would need more legislators to ditch Congress. The final straw in the ensuing elections will be the familiarity of the candidate. His/her charisma and rapport with locals versus that of the opponent will be the decider.
