Ahead of the Puducherry Legislative Assembly elections, former Congress leader A V Subramanian on Friday resigned from all Congress party posts.
In a letter addressed to V Vaithilingam, president of the Puducherry Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC), Subramanian cited “special reasons and unavoidable circumstances” as reasons for the decision.
His decision comes after Puducherry Congress president V Vithilingam released the party’s list of 16 candidates for the upcoming elections earlier today.
According to the list, DBR Selvam will contest from Manadipattu, while P Karthikeyan will contest from Osudu. Other prominent candidates include N Raja Kumar from Indiranagar, V Vaithilingam from Thattanchavady, PK Devadas from Kamarajnagar and M Vaidyanathan from Lawspet. G Rajendran from Muthialpet, J Vijayalakshmi from Ariyankuppam and RKR Anandaraman from Manavely will contest.
The party has also fielded M Kandasamy from Embalam, G Anparasan from Nettapkkam, Dinesh Kumar from Nedungadu, R Kamalakannan from Thirunallar and AM Ranjith from Karaikal North. In Mahe, Ramesh Parampath has been named as the candidate, while Kollapalli Srinivas Ashok will contest from Yanam.
The announcement comes on the heels of the seat-sharing agreement reached earlier this week between the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), under which the Congress will contest 16 of the 30 seats, while the DMK will contest the remaining 14 constituencies.
“We will share seats among the alliance parties in the 14 seats reserved for the DMK,” said Jagadrakshajan, the party’s Puducherry election in-charge.
The Congress and the DMK are also alliance partners in Tamil Nadu, where the party led by Prime Minister MK Stalin has allotted the Congress 28 of the 234 seats for the 2026 Assembly elections.
The Union Territory of Puducherry is scheduled to hold the 2026 Assembly elections on April 9 in a single phase, with the counting of votes scheduled to take place on May 4, the Independent Electoral Commission announced.
