 Hello and welcome to Newsweek. The election results for the Puducherry Union Territory was announced on May 2. Subsequently, the Chief Minister and Rangaswamy took oath on May 7. But after 50 days of the election results being published, the Chief Minister is unable to form a cabinet. The problems between the AI and RCE, the All India NRCongest and the Badge Janta Party has been reportedly in making the delay in formation of the cabinet. Together with that, the problems within the BJP with every BJP legislator willing to make it to the cabinet has been delaying the process. So to speak more about it, we have with us Mr. R.K. Radhakrishnan from Different Line. Welcome sir. Hello. So to begin with, what is the BJP attempting in the Puducherry Union Territory? What is your first comment on this? Whatever it is attempting, it is not going well. In fact, we learned that just this morning Mr. Rangaswamy had gone and met the left-wing governor, Dr. Thamizhi Soundarajan and has handed over a list of names of people who will be ministers in the cabinet. As you know, because of the limitation, there are only 33 members, 30 elected members and three nominated members. Because of that, you can have a maximum of seven ministers. But it seems since the nominated members are three in number, that is not being considered when you form the ministry. So it is six people who can be in the ministry. So Rangaswamy is already one and you can nominate a maximum of three people. Obviously, Lakshmi Narayanan who left the Congress to join A&RC, Rangaswamy will have to be given a place. And his name finds a place in the cabinet. And of course, Lakshmi Kanthan and Tirumurugan. These are the three names from the A&R Congress side. That's what I hear. And on the part of the BJP, despite the fact that John Kumar's supporters went and tried to literally force their way into the BJP office and John Kumar himself went to Delhi to push the BJP's central leadership to nominate him as minister. His name is not there in the list of cabinet. Of course, Naveen Chimayan's name is there because he is the guy who literally engineered all the defections from the Congress and made BJP a viable combination in Kondicherry. Unfortunately, he doesn't get to be Deputy Chief Minister because it was very clear that Rangaswamy is no more to have Deputy Chief Minister. So the sad fact is that Namasivayam, despite all the summer salts that he did, finally finds himself in the same portfolios as he did last time. In fact, I think a couple of departments will be lesser, I think. And the tussle was for the second post where John Kumar or any of the other people who had switched parties should come or should it go to a BJP chap who has been with the BJP for a long time but still can't win an election. A guy called Sai Saravanan is the name that I hear. Now, Sai Saravanan is the only person in 2016 who got his deposit back. All the other 29 protesting candidates in 2016 profited their deposits. Sai Saravanan is the only guy who got his deposit back. So these are the two names from the BJP which I hope will be out sooner than later. So the infighting within the BJP like what you said for the second ministerial birth has come out in the open with John Kumar protesting, supporters of John Kumar protesting in the BJP office and others throwing their hat in. What are you seeing from here, sir? Who is going to win the race? See, it's very clear that there is no coordination between the Rangasamy Congress and BJP and BJP is literally forcing its hand in every single time that it has to deal with Rangasamy, whether it is the allocation of the number of seats or it is the Chief Ministeral candidate face of the Chief Ministeral candidate before the election or after that also. Even after the election immediately on May 2nd, for instance, the BJP refused to say that Rangasamy is the Chief Minister candidate but finally they had to announce that he is the Chief Minister candidate. But barring that, you would see that the BJP has literally forced its way in and has literally got almost all its demands. It was very clear that it went on the Speaker, it is very clear that it wanted the legislative assembly secretary. It was very clear that it needed a minimum of three portfolios apart from all of this. But because of the fact that Rangasamy also is not a person who can be pushed around beyond a point, we see that the BJP has climbed down a little bit on what it wants. So basically this has been a power struggle and in that power struggle we see that BJP has won about 70% of the battle and Rangasamy has won 30% of the battle. As we go ahead, I think we will see much more of this in where Rangasamy and BJP will not be in sync with one another. And BJP itself, I mean there is a Congress BJP within the BJP and then there is a BJP itself. So we will see the Congress BJP which is right now has the upper hand within the BJP will be fighting for its survival in the face of the RSS BJP and local BJP and whatnot. The local BJP of course, he is much more accommodative and a watch PAE like organization. But the RSS BJP which Nirmal Kumar Surana brings with him from Bangalore is a completely different entity and it is more like the Modi BJP which refuses to recognize or realize any mistakes within the party. So as we all know that the BJP has a very successful track record of splitting parties and toppling governments. So do you think that they are facing their own medicine in Punecherry with their own party MLAs staging a revolt against their own party? Not really. These are all early days. It's a very, very small thing. See, I believe John Kumar's antics were about something else. It's not definitely about the ministership. I think it is trying to force the BJP to settle the IT case. Basically 38 crores which for the IT department had given him notice. So I think it's about settling that then splitting else. That might have been a deal. But the fact remains that the BJP is supremely capable of splitting any other political party in Punecherry. We have seen that all the six independent MLAs when they elected, they were with Rangasamy Congress and suddenly we see that three of them have suddenly moved to the BJP. Now, it doesn't require anybody's imagination that there are only two Congress members. One person from among the two is susceptible for defection and he can be bought over very easily. I mean literally bought very easily and we have seen that happen multiple times in Punecherry. So you can, I mean John Kumar and his son Richards can always leave the party where two MLAs would have left and they would have bought five or six others. So it's not a problem for the BJP. It's a party with enormous money. It's a party with enormous muscle. There are six draft agencies sitting with Amit Shah. He can unleash any of them at any point of time on anyone. And these agencies despite being populated by officers of the Indian police service seem to think that there should be remaining loyal to Amit Shah and not to the constitution of India. So as long as that continues, I think we will see exactly what we are seeing in West Bengal and the other places today where officers are being hounded for doing their jobs, where politicians are being picked up and kept arrested just because they belong to a different political party. So BJP has actually nothing to worry. It just needs the time, the central leadership, which is where every power is concentrated. I mean just this duo of Amit Shah and Modi, they just need the time to think that there is a problem in Punecherry and give 10 minutes to handle it. Who do you want to target? Who do you want to pick up? Who do you want in your party? Then it's a matter of negotiation as to how much money these guys will take. Because BJP has gathered strength or gained strength from the nominated MLAs as well. So what do you think is the role of the lieutenant governor there and the change of position of the nominated MLAs who have now their voting powers as well? No, I think the lieutenant governor has zero powers. Kiran Bedi was there exactly in the same role as the government of India. In this case, the union home ministry has kept the governors in every single state. They're a listening post. They're a set of people who report to the union home ministry and it is the union home ministry, union home minister who seems to be taking all the decisions. If the lieutenant governor's office had a role, it'd be incumbent upon the lieutenant governor to advise the political parties to form a cabinet. It's been 50 days. Has she spoken a word? She dare not speak a word merely because she was a former president of the BJP in Tamil Nadu and she has been put there with the specific reason and purpose that she has to be the face. She's a very pleasant face and people like her much more than they like Kiran Bedi who was a pity and enormously unpopular with the people of Puducherry especially after she continues the direct rise scheme and so she has a purpose and the purpose is just this, be seen in all places, speak in Tamil and then be nice to people and whatnot. She's more a PR person in Puducherry than a constitutional authority and in which world have you seen this? A governor of Telangana shuttling between a place which is 1000 miles away from her place. Hyderabad obviously, Telangana needs much more of inputs from a governor than this Puducherry but that doesn't prevent the BJP which is only bent on somehow capturing power in Puducherry from keeping her as the person in Puducherry, Puducherry so that they can do just as they please with bringing in the all kinds of elements that they please. Now the portion of the three MLA's has been clarified by the Supreme Court and this is the extremely surprising and extremely anti-democratic pronouncements that and this is my opinion of the Supreme Court of India. How can a court say that a nominated MLA is equal to an elected MLA? Then what sense does it make to have elected MLA's and why have 10% of the house filled with elected MLA's and how can an elected MLA be a minister and that is what has happened just now. So all this bring to the fore the primary question as to if Puducherry's cabinet is decisive can actually do something for the people of the union territory and is it even relevant? I think as far as I am concerned the cabinet of Puducherry is an irrelevant appendage. It needs to be abolished and the governor should the left-wing governor should handle the functions of the cabinet because it just doesn't make any sense at the end of the day the LG is supreme and even though the constitution provides for some more power for the elected government in Puducherry, what we see increasingly is what has been happening in Delhi where the left-wing governor wields all the powers to the expulsion of the cabinet getting any powers at all. We saw this in operation during current time and now we will see it in operation remote controlled by the BJP with every single development initiative being spirited by the party in Delhi and nothing to do with the aspirations and hopes of the people of Puducherry. Thank you. Thank you.