The major Dravidian rival, DMK led by M K Stalin, unperturbed over the headway, Chief Minister E. Palaniswami seems to be reinforced by his BJP alliance and PM:s special focus to South, faces an immediate challenge in a likely BJP take-over of Union Territory Puducherry.

This has come about with the Congress Chief Minister V Narayanaswami, reduced to heading a minority government in the wake of poaching of Congress MLAs said to be engineered by BJP, as part of its poll strategy, and a sudden dismissal of the Lt. Governor Kiran Bedi without any clarification.

The CM and Lt. Governor had a running battle for five years, each trying to outdo the other in governance, and both becoming unpopular before the people. With the Narayanaswami government hanging in balance, BJP is trying to see whether the rival party NR Congress could make the change-over with support of a few BJP and AIADMK members left in the 30-member Assembly till the next poll within two months.

Given the continuing BJP ambitions on extending its rule to Telangana next time. The Modi Government had appointed Tamil Nadu BJP leader Tamilisai Soundararajan as Governor of Telangana two years back. Now she has been asked to take additional charge as acting Lt. Governor in Puducherry and BJP leaders hope she would tackle the current vacuum in the elected dispensation.

BJP hopes in any case to capture power here in the next election in April-May in alliance with the local NR Congress and AIADMK. Mr Stalin was planning for DMK to go alone, given the murky record of disputations between CM and Kiran Bedi since the last election in 2016.

It is clear that BJP is determined to stage a major presence in the South, (Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala) this year in conditions looking relatively favourable more than ever before.

The timing of the launch of several infrastructure projects by Prime Minister Modi in both Tamil Nadu and Kerala stating that they would promote growth and jobs and also enhance ease of living is all aimed at drawing favourable attention; Behind all this is his objective of turning India a "One Nation, One Language, One Law" and maybe in other respects too.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to visit Puducherry on February 25. He is also due to open his party's election campaign in Tamil Nadu at Coimbatore on that day. On February 14, when he visited Chennai to launch Metro and other infrastructural projects, he held consultations with both Chief Minister E Palaniswami and the Deputy CM Mr O Panneerselvam with a gesture of keeping them united.

Three days later he dedicated to the nation three major energy projects including a Natural Gas Pipeline and laid the foundation-stone of Cauvery Basin Refinery at a cost of Rs. 31,580 crores, near Nagapattinam.

While Mr CM Palaniswami assured Muslims and other religious minorities that AIADMK stood committed to its ideology of secularism...,the alliance partner, BJP, at the State level has described the coming poll as a battle between "patriots and anti-nationals".

Both AIADMK and DMK have asked alliance partners to communicate their seat preferences before the end of February whereafter seat-sharing would be finalised. (IPA Service)