PUDUCHERRY: Grown men bursting into tears or keeping long faces on being denied tickets is a common sight during the election brouhaha. Hence, a rare show of camaraderie between the Congress and DMK MLAs, after one lost the constituency to the other due to delimitation, took everyone by surprise.
S P Sivakumar of DMK, who lost his Raj Bhavan constituency to K Lakshminarayanan of the Congress, accompanied Lakshminarayan when he filed his nomination papers and wished him success as well.
Of course, the only reason why this was not causing Sivakumar heartburn could be that he was likely to be nominated if the alliance was voted to power. Sivakumar had won the Raj Bhavan seat four times and had been the education minister in the R V Janakiraman government from 1996 to 2000, while K Lakshminarayanan, a two-time MLA from Cassicade constituency, had also been the education minister.
Several contestants, who have missed out due to the alliance factor, have either gone and joined Rangasamy’s All India NR Congress or are contemplating to contest as independents. N Anand of Congress who lost the Uppalam seat resigned to join AINRC, while VMC Sivakumar of DMK from Neravy and V K Ganapathy of Congress are debating on their next step.