Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is slowly turning into a messenger of bad fortunes for the party. Rahul Gandhi is set to visit Puducherry on February 17, and a day before he visits the state, the Congress-led government in the legislative assembly has slipped into minority with only 14 MLAs against the required number of 16.
The Congress party is running the Puducherry government in alliance with the DMK because it is short of a majority. In the 30 seats of the assembly that went to polls, Congress won 15 in the last election while DMK won 2 and both parties came together to form the government.
However, in the last few weeks, the party has lost many MLAs due to defections and resignations. Two of them — A Namassivayam and E.Theeppainjan — resigned on January 25 to join BJP. On Monday, Malladi Krishna Rao quit and today, John Kumar resigned, resulting in a minority government.
As of now, out of the 30 legislative assembly seats that go for elections (total 33 seats with 3 being nominated), the government, as well as the opposition, have 14 MLAs each while 2 seats are lying vacant. Therefore, before the UT goes to the polls in April-May this year, the Congress party could lose the government because the opposition, with the same number of MLAs, would make a claim for the government.
Moreover, the relations between DMK – without whose support Congress will lose the claim on the government instantly – and Congress are not very good due to problems in seat-sharing for Tamil Nadu as well as Pondicherry assembly election.
The issues between DMK-Congress started coming out in the open when the grand old party performed badly in the 2019 general election but won almost all the seats in Tamil Nadu, thanks to its alliance with DMK. Many DMK leaders questioned the ability of Congress to win votes and started seeing it as baggage.
Previously Senior DMK leader S Jagathrakshakan said that the party will contest on all 30 assembly seats of Puducherry assembly alone and added, “If we fail (to win polls), I will commit suicide on this stage.”
If the DMK decides to pull out the support, the Congress-DMK alliance government would fall months before the election (expected to be held by May this year) and V Narayanasamy will have to resign from the CM chair.
The Congress party has thus become a liability for many regional parties, contributing to their loss. For example, among the primary reasons for the RJD-led Grand Alliance’s loss in Bihar, was the poor tally of Congress which won less than 20 seats out of 70 it contested. Even the Communist parties have better strike rates compared to Congress and therefore many regional parties and their leaders have started questioning their alliance with the Congress party.
In Kerala, the Kerala Congress left the INC-led United Democratic Front during the last local body elections due to the increasing tilt of the party towards the Muslim League. The Christian votes shifted to the Left Democratic Front and this resulted in a humiliating loss for the UDF in the 2020 local body elections.
The leaders of the regional parties do not want to ally with Congress because the central leadership of the party cannot bring votes like Prime Minister Modi, who single-handedly turned the results of the Bihar legislative election 2020. On one hand, PM Modi could turn even the most unlikely elections while on the other, Rahul Gandhi’s visit to any state further weakens the position of the party. Therefore, even in the states like Rajasthan and Chattishgarh, where Congress has a government, senior party leaders avoid any campaign or rally by Rahul Gandhi.