Namassivayam’s Delhi Trip Shows BJP’s Puducherry Leverage
The minister’s meetings with Modi’s team point to coalition bargaining, with the BJP pressing for more posts before Puducherry’s cabinet is filled.
With Puducherry’s full ministry still unfinished, BJP leader and newly appointed minister A. Namassivayam met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Nitin Nabin, Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and organisation chief B.L. Santhosh in New Delhi, saying the trip was to thank the leadership for election support and discuss the Union Territory’s development needs (
The Hindu). That is the surface story. The real story is that the BJP is using the post-election pause to renegotiate power inside the NDA before Chief Minister N. Rangasamy closes out cabinet formation.
Delhi, not Puducherry, is where the deal is being cut
The timing matters. Rangasamy, Namassivayam and AINRC’s Malladi Krishna Rao were sworn in on May 13, but the remaining ministerial berths were left open, and The Hindu reported that talks were still on over how to share them (The Hindu). In the previous NDA term, the BJP held the Speaker’s post and two ministries; this time, sources told The Hindu the party is likely to seek one more Cabinet berth and the Speaker’s chair again (The Hindu).
That is the leverage point. The BJP does not need to dominate the 30-member Assembly numerically to shape the government: the alliance won 18 seats, but the coalition still needs a clean internal settlement on ministries, Speaker, and the wider institutional balance (The Hindu). In 
India, this is how small coalition partners convert a limited seat count into control over posts that matter.
What the BJP gets — and what it risks
For the BJP, the payoff is straightforward: a larger share of executive power in Puducherry and another institutional foothold in the Assembly. The party also appears to be managing the optics carefully. Its spokesperson denied reports that three party members had been named nominated legislators, calling those claims false (The Hindu). That denial matters because nominated seats are another channel of influence in the Union Territory — and the less said publicly, the more room there is to bargain privately.
Rangasamy, meanwhile, needs the BJP’s cooperation to keep the coalition stable while he pushes the usual Puducherry agenda: welfare delivery, central funding, and the long-running statehood demand. He has already framed the relationship with Delhi as positive and said the territory will continue to “insist on statehood” (
Asianet Newsable). That makes central goodwill useful — but it also gives the BJP a reason to extract terms now, while the ministry is still incomplete.
What to watch next
The next decision point is whether Mandaviya follows through with a Puducherry visit next week, as The Hindu reported, and whether that visit produces a final formula on Cabinet sharing and the Speaker’s post (The Hindu). If the BJP locks in a second berth, it will confirm that the real bargaining in Puducherry is being done in Delhi, not in the Assembly. If it does not, Rangasamy will have shown he can delay and still keep the alliance intact.
