 Aloha and welcome to NewsClick. The N.R. Congress in the Puducherry Union Territory formed the government after a very long delay due to the issues with the Baddiya Janda Party. Even after forming the government, the Chief Minister and Rangaswamy has always been sidelined by the left-hand governor Dr. Thamilisesh of the Rajak. The government, the Puducherry Union Territory is also going for local body polls in the month of October. To discuss about these issues and the developments, we have with us Mr. R.K. Radhakrishnan, senior journalist and political analyst. Welcome, sir. So to begin with, a few days back I saw a tweet of yours which said that the Puducherry Chief Minister is missing. What is it all about? What is the tweet all about and what is the reason behind that? See, the thing is that the Chief Minister has been completely sidelined. If you notice, all the three nominated MLAs are from the BJP. The BJP did the nomination even before anything happened in the, I mean, even before the MLAs took both or the ministry was formed and what not. It was completely out of predation to do that. Usually only after the assembly meets and all that is a list of names forwarded to the left-hand governor. But the BJP has a left-hand governor who previously was with the party. Of course, we can't say that she's currently with the party because that will become a defamation case in itself. However, prove it might be. Given the fact that the entire environment is BJP enabled, they just went ahead and without even the Chief Minister knowing, he already saw that the three nominees names were already being flashed in the paper and all that. I think he also learned it from his friends and from the media only, number one. And secondly, what we see is that the BJP refused to concede the demand of the NR Congress to give the MP seat to the party. It went ahead and nominated its own person. And of course, in between, of course, we saw that Mr. Rangaswamy's Chief Minister was against having a Deputy Chief Minister because he said that there is no provision for that in the constitutional scheme of things. There are no rules and all that. But unfortunately, he was overruled on that also. So it is basically for me, it seems like Rangaswamy is in effect a person who is just sitting there in the chair and he's sitting very tightly in the chair that they are not able to move him. But otherwise, it appears as if the BJP is following the shot, BJP is running the administration. And all that you see across the Union Territory is Dr. Thamilasai going around and inaugurating stuff and doing COVID vaccination follow-ups and whatnot. Whereas we don't see the Chief Minister doing any of those things. And that's the reason for worry because you elected a bunch of people to govern you. And now we have an unelected official who's appointed to the post doing whatever the High Command in Delhi wants you to do or the government in Delhi, the Home Minister in Delhi wants you to do. So when that is the situation, I think it's a pretty sad thing. I don't think you need a ministry in the judiciary. It's a wasteful expenditure to try and elect 30 MLAs and then we stuck with the left-wing governor who can do as she pleases, he or she pleases. That's the reason for the week. The people of Puducherry is all at sea. They got a government after a very long delay even during the second wave of the pandemic with all these developments with the left-wing governor taking control. What is the future of the Union Territory or the people of Union Territory? See, the thing about Puducherry is that there has been minimum government for a very, very long time. And anything that has happened in Puducherry is because of the people of Puducherry and not because there is a government in Puducherry. Let me be very clear on that. The government has only interfered in the life of people of Puducherry and created worse things. The MLAs and the others, what have they done? They have only given exemptions to building rules and regulations and all kinds of things in Puducherry itself and being part of, in some cases, being part of people who do not have the good of Puducherry in their heart and ended up being party to land grabs and whatnot. We have seen that in so many cases. Most of the MLAs have some kind of real estate dealing or the other. That's what we have seen. Whatever has happened in Puducherry is because of the people of Puducherry. Puducherry is Puducherry because of the people of Puducherry. It became a holiday spot, it became a tourist spot and whatever. Because of the people of Puducherry, people work towards building that. It is not the government which did it. And hence, when you have a government, it only ends up impeding all of these things. And that's what we have been seeing. We have been seeing pushback and trying to say that this is a Hindu holy site which has some 68 famous temples and whatnot and whatnot. Obviously, it's a fact. But it's also a holiday town where people come and enjoy their time with the merriment that you cannot see in Chennai and the other cities of Tamil Nadu. So that is because of the people. And I really hope that the new left-wing governor in charge and the others do not get in the way of what people want to do in Puducherry at all and help them in some way to regain some of that last glory and whatnot and make sure that more encouragement does not come and more land grab does not take place in Puducherry and actually facilitate the entrepreneurship of the people of Puducherry. So with the BJP dominating the daily administration and the left-wing governor almost taking control of the administration what is the future of the N.R. Congress and N. Rangaswamy in the state? No, this is a classic case of a small party being followed whole by a big party and at the same time the boss of the party doing nothing because of the skeletons that he has in his own cupboard. So what we'll see is a gradual disintegration of the N.R. Congress over the next five years or six years or whatever. And then what we'll see is that the metamorphosis of the N.R. Congress into the as the BJP. So just as we have seen in the case of Assam, Hemantabhiswara Sarma and Kiran Rajiju and all the others in the Northeast what we see in those places is that the unmasked people from the Congress MLA's and all of that move into the BJP initially they form a separate block because of the anti-defection laws and what not then they move into the BJP which is what happened in Arunachal Pradesh. So we will see this and finally you will have the same set of guys you're probably belonging to the Congress now being part of the BJP why are the N.R. Congress route or some other route or whatever. So what we are going to see is what we are seeing now actually is the last days of the N.R. Congress and just because it doesn't stand for anything like you know it's not a Dravidian party for starters. It is not a communist party for heaven's sake and it is not a Hindutva party. So what are you standing for? You are not a Dalit party. You are not a Muslim party. You don't belong to the religious space at all and at the same time you do not profess equality, equity of people and what not. So given all these things a welfare party like the ADMK N.R. Congress is going to go down very fast because the you know geography of Puliputcher is very little. The number of people in N.R. Congress also is proportionately very small. The same thing will happen to one part of the ADMK much later but what we will see now is the disintegration of N.R. Congress in the possibly in the next five, six years or as soon as Rangasamy decides to leave the seat. So with all these developments do you see any future for the Congress in Puliputcher? There is no hope for right now for Congress in Puliputcher. It is just that you know somebody will have to give it on a platter to Congress only then Congress can win. Now if the N.R. Congress you know becomes defunct and then there is an election as a result of that we will see that the Congress and the BJP will be fighting head to head and then again you know there is a possibility that a lot of people from the Congress will win but unfortunately what will happen subsequently is that what happened from December to January or February of 2021. We will see the same drama being repeated where in Congress MLAs will move to the BJP because suddenly they will get extremely interested in the principles and the idealism of the BJP and of course Mahatma Gandhi will be there to bless this all and that is the reason they will move even if they say that it is principles and all that. Thank you so for joining us. Thank you so much. That's all we have time now. Thank you for watching Newsweek.