 The Indian National Congress, from being a dominant force in Puducherry, has suffered a massive setback. The party managed to win only two seats in the 30 member house in the recent elections. After being unable to stop its own legislators from defecting to BJP and all India and our Congress, the Narayana Swami led government fell in February 2021. The BJP in the meantime has grown as a huge force and even becoming a part of the Rangaswamy led government in the union territory from being an insignificant player until recently. The AII-DMK, after wielding considerable influence in the 1970s, has lost prominence and won no seats this time. The DMK managed to win six seats in the elections but remained non-committal when the rift was widening between the left-wing government and the previous Congress government. Will the Congress, DMK and AII-DMK be able to survive and rise again? We have with us Mr. Radha Krishnan, the associated editor of Frontline to discuss. The Congress has been limited to a very small force. They are reduced to just two members in the present house. So what do you say in Congress? Do we have a future just after occupying the park for so long? What is the future of the Congress in Punecherry? The future of the Congress in Punecherry is linked to the future of the Congress in India. I would say the Congress party as an entity has to die out and we need a responsible opposition coming into its place. Now the unfortunate thing is that the Congress is refusing to die out and at the same time it's refusing to become a political party. So we have Rahul Gandhi sitting there and he will release white papers and black papers and blue papers and yellow papers but he will not take responsibility of running the party. He will not take responsibility of even an election. We saw that in Tamil Nadu. Why did DMK and Congress end up losing seats in Kanyakumari which is a place where they should have won every single seat. It is because Priyanka Gandhi was supposed to come for a campaign. I think this was April 1 or 2 or whatever and then suddenly her husband gets Covid so she refuses to come and Rahul Gandhi should have stepped in. He should have come there. So instead of giving that final push in Kanyakumari what we see is that the DMK leaders also were forced to halt their campaign on those crucial days in Kanyakumari and concentrate elsewhere because without Congress Kanyakumari doesn't make sense. If there was a central leader you would have seen both Austin and Suresh Rajan winning their elections and you would have seen all the six seats going to the Congress, the Congress with the DMK combined. So this is the kind of irresponsibility that we have seen from the first family of the Congress and this family either needs to get out of the scene or take responsibility for its actions. So unless that happens I don't see a revival of the party either in Kuthicherry or in any other part of India but as long as they remain at the helm, again it becomes a crippling problem for the Congress that this is kind of freedom without responsibility wherein the children can come and do exactly as they please and walk out exactly as they please, take holidays when they want to and then come back and Congress has some kind of ancestral property which they can generally trample upon. I think that has to change first before the Congress becomes a viable combine for Kuthicherry or for India itself. With all these issues, with the tussle between BJP and ANRC going on do you see any political realignment in the union territory with the role of DMK or Congress or ANRC coming together anything like that is it possible there? I don't think so, I don't think there is any realignment possible because BJP basically works on breaking parties and taking away people to its own side and that is what is happening in ADMP and Tamil Nadu that is exactly what has happened between the ADMP and BJP in the union territory. Now the next thing that will happen is the likelihood of breaking up this ANRC which is a very powerful political force in Kuthicherry and its members going off with the BJP, so that is their game plan and I don't think there is a huge desire on the part of the DMK to stand in the way at all because the stakes for the BJP is very high and the returns as far as the DMK is concerned is too low because even if you come to power you can't do much, that is a fact in the union territory only if you are aligned with the same government in the center can you do anything and that will not happen unless the BJP is with you if the BJP and the DMK are in alliance with Kuthicherry I think that will be enough for the people of Tamil Nadu to throw the DMK out in any election from now on and you remember that if local body elections are about to happen and the Supreme Court has spelled out an order on that so given this circumstance and the fact that the Congress is a house in Dissaray I don't see any political realignment in Kuthicherry happening at all for a very long point of time all I see is that a gradual weakening of the Rangasamy Congress and members of the Rangasamy Congress including MLAs switching sides and going over to the BJP Sir there are the two other Dravidian parties, the DMK and ADMQ which wields considerable influence in Tamil Nadu are very small or less influential forces in Kuthicherry so do you see any these two parties gaining gathering strength from the weakening ANRC or India National Congress? No I don't see that either because I think the idea of either Dravidian parties ruling Kuthicherry has there from the time that electoral politics came into Kuthicherry you remember the first election that MGR1 was not in Tamil Nadu it was in Kuthicherry and the moment that MGR had thoughts of making Kuthicherry a part of Tamil Nadu the ADMQ lost its relevance and lost its majority and finally became the first government of all so this is history now you look at the DMK it's not again who are the members of the DMK John Kumar was in the DMK for heaven's sake till 2016 he was in the DMK till 2021 he was in the Congress and then he moved over so what we see in all these political parties is that these ayarams and gayarams are part of every political setup so it's not the ideology that drives people in power into various political parties it's just convenience so at one point of time it was very convenient for John Kumar to be in the DMK he was in the DMK and then he moves over to the Congress because Congress becomes the ruling party so as long as this is the situation that is anyone with a large amount of money wins the election Kuthicherry can be no different from any other state in India at least most of the states in India where money decides who wins and who loses I think it's for the people of Kuthicherry to decide after what they've seen happen for the past 50 days thank you