The Congress government in Puducherry plunged into crisis after one more legislator, A John Kumar, resigned from the party on Tuesday. With this, Kumar has become the fourth legislator to resign from the party in quick succession. The development comes just a day before former Congress president Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to visit the union territory to kick start the political campaign for upcoming elections.
A close confidant of Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, Kumar represented the Kamaraj Nagar constituency after winning it in the 2019 bypoll. His resignation comes just a day after another party legislator Malladi Krishna Rao resigned from the post of MLA on Monday. Rao had earlier quit as Health minister.
PTI reports that Kumar called on Speaker V P Sivakolundhu at his office and handed over his handwritten letter of resignation. The Speaker informed the news agency that he was perusing the letter and would take a decision soon. He also said that he had received Malladi Krishna Rao’s resignation letter from the House through fax on Monday night.
With this, the strength of the ruling Congress in the territorial assembly has now come down to ten and both the treasury and the opposition will now have 14 members each, the report said. The assembly has 30 elected seats and three nominated seats.
V Narayanasamy-led Congress has been dependent on the DMK, which has three members in the House. From the opposition side, N. Rangaswamy-led AINRC has seven members while AIADMK has four and the Bharatiya Janata party 3, all nominated members. Recently, Rangaswamy said that his party will continue alliance with the BJP in upcoming elections in Puducherry.
In the 2016 assembly elections, the Congress had won 15 assembly seats while AINRC got 8, 7 seats down from what it had secured in 2012.