Political fronts struggling to iron out differences as deadline for filing nomination nears in Puducherry

Political alliances in Puducherry face deadline challenges as they struggle to finalize nominations ahead of upcoming Assembly elections.

With hardly five days left for the filing of nominations for the Assembly polls in the Union Territory, the two key players — the ruling National Democratic Alliance and the Opposition INDIA bloc — are struggling to iron out differences before finalising candidates for the April 9 elections.

As per the Election Commission of India’s schedule, the last date for filing of nomination is March 23 in Puducherry. After the ECI declared the election dates last Sunday, leaders of both the fronts went into a huddle on Monday to arrive at a consensus on the number of seats and selection of constituencies, but the meetings ended without any outcome.

While within NDA, there is a broad understanding between All India N R Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party on continuing with the seat formula of last Assembly polls for this year’s elections too, AINRC is opposed to any idea of including Latchiya Jananayaga Katchi, headed by businessman Jose Charles Martin, into NDA fold, sources said.

In the 2021 polls, AINRC had contested 16 seats leaving 14 seats to BJP, from which the saffron party had allocated 5 seats to AIADMK. For sometime now, BJP had been pressing for the inclusion of LJP into NDA fold and allocating two seats to that party from its quota for this election.

As Chief Minister and AINRC founder N. Rangasamy did not budge to the demand, Union Minister and party’s in-charge for the Union Territory elections flew down to Puducherry on Monday evening to hold deliberations. Though Mr. Rangasamy did not attend the meeting, he deputed a team headed by Minister for Public Works K. Lakshminarayanan to hold the discussions. However, the discussions did not yield any results as AINRC maintained its position opposing LJK into their fold.

“We took the stand of not including LJP into the fold and also needed assurance on certain administrative matters. The Chief Minister is firm on our demands and without any assurance, talks will not proceed further,” said an AINRC member.