The Congress won 15 seats out of 30 while its partner DMK bagged two, giving the alliance enough to throw out the ruling All India NR Congress which could manage just eight seats.
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AIADMK, which contested the polls on its own, bagged two seats.
With the Congress-DMK combine getting the majority mark, the focus will now shift to choosing the chief minister.
In 2011, the AINRC won 15 seats polling 31.75% of the votes cast, while the Congress got seven.
The Congress-DMK combine will form the next government in Puducherry.
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AIADMK Election Wing Secretary and former Minister P. Kannan loses to his protégé K. Lakshminarayanan in Raj Bhawan.
He also appealed to candidates to file their election expenditure details within a month.
Namachivayam, the local head of the Congress, is expected to be the chief-ministerial candidate. The PWA, comprising the DMDK, MDMK, CPI(M), CPI and the RSP, which contested 28 constituencies and the BJP, which had fielded candidates in all 30 seats, drew a blank.
This comes as a huge loss for AINRC founder and Puducherry’s longest-serving Chief Minister, N Rangaswamy – who resigned after the results were out.
A hardcore Congressman who modleed himself after erstwhile Tamil Nadu Congress leader K Kamaraj, the outgoing Chief Minister has multiple images- for some he is laid back with different priorities, while for others, he is an amicable man, who tries his best in governance despite limitations of a Union territory. Early trends showed the AINRC and Congress in a neck-and- neck race.
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But in the subsequent five years, the AINRC failed to deliver on issues such as development and unemployment.
