Hyderabad: Prominent BJP leader and Puducherry Home Minister Arumugam Namassivayam has won the Mannadipet assembly seat, defeating the Congress’ T.P.R. Selvame by more than 6,100 votes.
According to the latest trends and results available on the Election Commission website, Namassivayam, the de facto number two in the Puducherry government, got 15,918 votes, while Selvame received 9,808 votes.
In the 2021 assembly polls, Namassivayam (56) polled 14,939 votes, netting 51.89 percent of the vote cast, as opposed to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)’s A Krishnan, whose vote percentage was 42.28.
His personal rapport with most of the 31,113 electors this year, and a strong connection with the Vanniyar community in the beach town, aided by the BJP’s growing presence in the UT, are some of the factors that have worked in his favour.
Mannadipet, in the northwest of the UT, is part of Puducherry’s Lok Sabha constituency and has elected leaders from almost all major parties in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, including the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC), since the 1964 election. It’s also one of the 10 commune panchayats of the UT.
In his five-year term as MLA and home minister, Namassivayam held many key portfolios in the UT. Being in charge of electricity, industries & commerce, education, sainik welfare, and sports, he used his offices with the Centre to clear the two new special economic zone projects, which were pending for over eight years during the Congress regime.
Proposed over more than 600 acres of land, IT and manufacturing parks worth Rs 2,500 were awaiting clearance during Congress chief minister V Narayansamy’s term.
Namassivayam, a seasoned politician with a background in civil engineering, is a key player in Puducherry politics. Namassivayam was instrumental in stabilising the BJP and the NDA after he switched from the Congress ahead of the 2021 assembly elections in the UT.
Until he crossed over to the BJP camp in January 2021, Namssivayam was the president of the Puducherry Pradesh Congress Committee. He made his disappointment with the Congress public after not being made chief minister.
Namassivayam swung the Vanniyar vote base through an electric campaign, but was sidelined for the top job by the Congress brass.
When he switched parties, he brought more than a dozen senior Congress leaders, including Theeppainthan, the then-sitting MLA from Ossudu constituency.
Before his innings with the Congress and then the BJP, Namassivayam was part of the DMK. He joined the Dravidian party in the 1990s, but his first attempt to win any seat was in 1996 on an MDMK ticket. Subsequently, he joined the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) and won the Oulgaret seat in 2001.
He had also contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from the Puducherry constituency with the AINRC’s support, but he finished the runner-up.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)