Puducherry assembly polls: High-calibre fight in Thattanchavady as CM Rangasamy takes on ex-CM Vaithilingam

NEW DELHI: Puducherry’s Thattanchavady constituency will see Congress MP and former chief minister V Vaithilingam take on incumbent CM N Rangasamy, marking the most high-profile contest in the upcoming assembly election.

Rangasamy is also the current Thattanchavady MLA.

The Union territory will hold assembly polls on April 9. The counting of votes will be held on May 4, along with the four poll-bound states - Assam, Keralam, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal - which will vote around the same time.

Rangasamy, a former Congress leader, floated his own party, the All India NR Congress (AINRC), in February 2011. He has served as chief minister twice as a Congress leader and twice more as the founder-president of the AINRC.

Vaithilingam is a two-term former CM and the sitting MP from the Union territory’s lone Lok Sabha seat, also called Puducherry, which he won in the 2019 general elections and retained five years later.

Rangasamy is also contesting from a second constituency, Mangalam.

The AINRC is contesting the polls in alliance with the BJP and will field candidates in 16 of the 30 seats that go to direct elections (the remaining three MLAs are nominated by the central government).

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The BJP will contest the remaining 14 constituencies, of which it has allotted two seats each to the AIADMK and the Latchiya Jananayaka Katchi.

The Congress and the DMK will contest under a similar seat-sharing arrangement, with the Congress set to field 16 candidates and the DMK 14.

Also Read | Puducherry assembly polls: Seat deadlock ends; Congress gets 16, DMK 14

In the 2021 polls, the AINRC-BJP combine won 16 seats—the exact majority mark—to unseat the Congress, which secured just two seats, while its ally, the DMK, won six. The Congress had unseated the AINRC in 2011.

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