PUDUCHERRY:In a strategic move ahead of the 2016 Assembly elections, former Minister A Namassivayam, who is the son-in-law of CM N Rangasamy, has been appointed president of Puducherry Pradesh Congress committee.
The 46-year-old Namassivayam, an MLA for 15 years, replaces A V Subramanian who was at the helm of affairs of the party for nearly a decade. Congress was toying with the idea of reorganising the party and place it under a suitable leader acceptable to not only the party men. The Congress, which lost the previous Assembly elections to Rangasamy’s AINRC, a breakaway group, is trying all it can to come back to power. In this scenario, by virtue of hailing from the dominant Vanniyar caste as well as being the son-in-law of the Chief Minister, the party felt he is in the right stead to lead the Congress to fight AINRC in the Assembly polls.
An elated Namassivayam, who visited the Appapaithasamy temple near Salem before taking charge, said his primary duty would be to ensure the victory of the party in the Assembly polls. “ I will work by eliciting opinion from party members and then going to people with the omissions and commissions of Rangasamy government”, he said.