By IANS,
Puducherry : Though the Congress is yet to announce its candidate for Puducherry’s sole Lok Sabha seat where polling will be held May 13, aspirant V. Narayanasamy as well as sitting MP M. Ramadass of the PMK Sunday expressed confidence of winning it.
Amidst hectic lobbying for his claim to the seat with the Congress leadership in New Delhi, Narayanasamy claimed he has the support of both former chief minister N. Rangasamy and Puducherry Munnetra Congress leader P. Kannan.
“Both are my friends and have assured me of their continued support and therefore I am sure to win from here,” Narayanswamy told IANS Sunday.
Kannan, however, told IANS he would support the party that assured him of a Rajya Sabha seat, and said the Congress should know he had also been approached by members of the PMK and other parties.
Meanwhile, Ramadass is confident of retaining the seat.
“While the Congress is a divided house, our front has created an election committee under the leadership of state AIADMK secretary and legislator A. Anbazhagan, comprising members from the fraternal MDMK and the two Left parties. Our victory is imminent,” Ramadass told IANS.
“The people have a lot to remember and thank me for. I achieved getting the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), the biggest hospital here, its autonomous status and extra power for civic bodies through my endeavour to get our Union Territory’s status upgraded to B-2,” he added.
Meanwhile, Anbazhagan told IANS that the DMK-led front’s candidate is “doomed to lose because several of its leaders are working at cross purposes since the ignominious removal of (then) Chief Minister N. Rangasamy last year.”
Further, the ruling party here let down citizens badly after the 2004 tsunami without creating a worthwhile rehabilitation or housing project, he added.
Sources in the VCK added that they would rather work for a PMK win that supports the cause of a separate Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka and not the Congress which they alleged was actively collaborating with the “Sinhalese chauvinist murderers”.
Ramadass was elected in 2004 with the support of the DMK, the Congress, MDMK and the two Left parties.
This time round, the DMK and VCK are ranged on one side while the PMK is backed officially by the two Communist parties, MDMK and AIADMK.
Situated some 200 km south of Chennai, this union territory is divided into four enclaves – two located within Tamil Nadu and Yanam in Andhra Pradesh and Mahe in Kerala.