New Delhi: Immediately after former Union Minister V Narayansamy was elected as the next Chief Minister of Puducherry, violence broke out in the state as supporters of A Namassivayam, the President of Puducherry unit of Congress, went on a rampage.
They were protesting against the election of V Narayansamy as the new CM. Actually, Namassivayam, a two-time CM, himself was aspiring to be the new Chief Minister and he was confident of being elected leader of the legislature party.
His confidence stemmed from the fact that V Narayansamy had publicly stated before counting that he was not in the race for CM post. In fact, Narayansamy did not even contest the Assembly elections.
According to reports available, over 10 buses were attacked on East Coast Road from Puducherry to Chennai resulting in many commuters getting stranded.
All this is not a good sign for the Congress party which has witnessed split in the party in the past. The outgoing Chief Minister Rangasamy was also a Congressman before he floated his own party.
Puducherry was the only silver lining for the Congress party in the recently concluded Assembly elections.
After being thrashed in all other states, the Congress found solace in the southern state where it won 17 seats in alliance with DMK. In a house of 30 members, the Congress-DMK alliance got a comfortable majority with Congress party winning 15 seats on its own.
Once the results were declared, lobbying started in the state unit of the Congress.
V Narayansamy, who is also the AICC General secretary, all of a sudden entered the race claiming he had the support of the majority of the MLAs.
Narayansamy, a former Union Minister, is believed to be close to the Gandhi family and his unanimous election is being attributed to his connections with 10, Janpath.
Opponents of rayansamy claim that he has support of not more than 5 MLAs. If that is true then things will not be that easy for him in the Assembly. He has just 2 seats more than the half-way mark.
