On Sunday, Lieutenant Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan will swear in five legislators from the N Rangasamy-led coalition cabinet as ministers, more than a month after the Puducherry election results were announced. The ministers will be sworn in at 2.30 p.m. on Sunday in front of the Lt Governor’s office and residence, Raj Nivas, which includes three AINRC members and two BJP leaders.
The list of cabinet members submitted by chief minister Rangasamy to Soundararajan earlier this week received President Ram Nath Kovind’s approval. According to news agency PTI, a Puducherry Gazette notification stated that “the President has been pleased to appoint” A Namassivayam, K Lakshminarayanan, C Djeacoumar, Chandira Priyanga, and AK Sai J Saravana Kumar as cabinet ministers. The All India NR Congress has Lakshminarayanan, Djeacoumar, and Priyanga, while the Bharatiya Janata Party has Namassivayam and Saravana Kumar, who left the Congress before the Puducherry assembly elections.
On Wednesday, more than two months after the AINRC-BJP alliance won the April 6 assembly elections, Rangasamy submitted the list of members to be included in his cabinet to Soundararajan. On May 7, AINRC founder Rangasamy was sworn in as Puducherry’s chief minister, and on June 16, BJP’s ‘Embalam’ R Selvam was elected Speaker of the 33-member assembly without opposition.
After the then-Congress-led regime in Puducherry collapsed in February, the AINRC-led alliance won the Union territory’s assembly elections. Several factors contributed to the delay in forming the cabinet, including internal BJP infighting, with supporters of all six elected MLAs lobbying for cabinet positions. Then, a day after taking the oath on May 7, Rangaswamy contracted Covid-19, and the newly-elected MLAs were sworn in on May 26. The delay is also due to negotiations between the AINRC and the BJP over the number of cabinet berths.
With Priyanga taking the oath of office on Sunday afternoon, Puducherry will have its first female minister in over four decades. Renuka Appadurai, the last woman minister in Puducherry between 1980 and 1983, was in charge of the education portfolio in the MDR Ramachandran-led coalition. This will also be the first time the BJP has been appointed to a cabinet in a Union territory.
The AINRC won 10 of the 16 seats it ran for, while the BJP won six of the nine seats. The coalition also has the support of three BJP-nominated members.
