Suspense as deadline nears for Shanmugham

By S. Nadarajan

PONDICHERRY, OCT. 2. The Pondicherry Chief Minister, Mr. P. Shanmugham, has less than two months to get elected to the Union Territory Assembly, but there is no word yet on the constituency he would contest from.

Even as the six-month deadline for his election is nearing, the Congress-led coalition is silent on which MLA will vacate his seat for Mr. Shanmugham, raising doubts over his continuance as Chief Minister.

In a virtual reversal of the situation in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, where the ruling party MLAs are eager to quit their seats for their leader, Ms. Jayalalithaa, here, almost each of the 11 Congress MLAs appears unwilling to vacate his seat for Mr. Shanmugham. Sources say none will quit unless there is an express directive from the high command.

However, the Pondicherry Congress Committee president, Mr. V. Narayanasamy, insists that the Chief Minister will fight the election. But Mr. Shanmugham himself keeps it a closely- guarded secret. For, he feels that any ``leak of his strategy'' would prove an advantage not only to the DMK-led Opposition but also to his party MLAs aspiring to replace him, sources say.

``I will announce at an appropriate time. There is still over a month left for me'', Mr. Shanmugham told The Hindu.

Sources claim that the Chief Minister has identified three seats in his Karaikal region - Tirunallar, Kotticherri and Karaikal South. He is also believed to have sounded out the MLAs of the constituencies, Mr. Kamalakannan and Mr. Nalamaharajan and Mr. V. Subramaniam, who is a Minister.

In the May Assembly elections, the Congress bagged four seats including the reserved Nedungadu seat, and the DMK two in the Karaikal region covering six Assembly segments.

But Congressmen doubt whether these seats would be absolutely safe as the recent return of the PMK to the DMK-led alliance appears to have bolstered the Opposition front. In the Assembly elections, the DMK lost the seats only by a few hundred votes while the PMK in alliance with the AIADMK emerged third in Tirunallar and Kotticherri.

For Mr. Shanmugham, time is clearly running out and the choices are rather few. He cannot seek re-election from Yanam which voted him to the previous Assembly after he was sworn in Chief Minister following the fall of the DMK regime. This time, the Independent from Yanam, Mr. Malladi Krishna Rao, would not vacate the seat for Mr. Shanmugham, owing to mutual animosities.

And, the Mahe constituency bordering Kerala, generally prefers to elect a local. Mr. Shanmugham cannot choose the Kasukadai constituency either, as it inflicted a crushing defeat on him in 1991, despite his being projected as a Chief Ministerial candidate.

That leaves Mr. Shanmugham with just the three ``relatively safe'' constituencies in Karaikal. However, whether the MLAs from there will vacate the seats for him without kicking up a fuss remains to be seen.

But the Opposition parties are clearly enjoying the Chief Minister's predicament. The former Minister and Puducherry Makkal Congress founder, Mr. P. Kannan, today claimed that the political situation in the Union Territory would undergo a change in the next fortnight.

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