Puducherry Congress reiterates stand to lead alliance in the Union Territory

AICC general secretary (organisation) K. C. Venugopal holding a meeting with Puducherry Pradesh Congress Committee functionaries on Tuesday.
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SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

The Puducherry Pradesh Congress Committee has reiterated its stand to the All India Congress Committee that the party, under no circumstances, should concede the role of leading the alliance of “secular and democratic” parties for the upcoming Assembly elections in the Union Territory.

The party’s Puducherry leadership, during their recent interactions with AICC general secretary (organisation) K. C. Venugopal and chairman of candidate screening committee T. S. Singh Deo, on two different occasions, had expressed their desire to contest not less than 18 of the total 30 Assembly seats spread across the four regions of the Union Territory.

The senior leaders, in their deliberations with Mr. Venugopal at a private hotel on Tuesday, had taken a position that the party needed to contest a minimum of 18 seats for the Congress to wrest power from the AINRC-BJP combine.

The leaders maintained that the party had parted with some of the “winnable and stronghold areas” to DMK in the 2021 Assembly polls and those constituencies needed to be taken back from the Dravidian party in the upcoming polls.

“We are determined to negotiate on all seats other than the 8 sitting seats. We are also determined to lead the alliance as the 2024 Lok Sabha poll results showed the party’s strength in Puducherry,” said a Congress functionary after Tuesday’s meeting with Mr. Venugopal.

In fact, during the visit of Mr. Deo last week for holding preliminary discussion for candidate selection, a group of workers submitted a representation to him requesting the AICC to stick to a formula of retaining 20 seats for the Congress and leaving the rest to the allies.

“Our workers are of the belief that the Congress should contest 20 seats and leave the remaining 10 to the alliance partners. Contesting less seats will not help the party to form the next government. In the last election, we gave away at least nine of our constituencies to the DMK. It was a wrong decision to part with those seats,” the representation said.

The representation also said that the AICC should depute a separate observer for alliance talks in Puducherry. The talks should be held at the PCC office only, it added.