Puducherry: Puducherry Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy is fighting a prestige battle in the Nellithope constituency to continue in his chair. What was thought to be a cake walk has now turned into a keen contest with AIADMK candidate Om Sakthi Sekar getting support from every quarter in the Opposition rank – more importantly from Narayanasamy’s bête noir and former Chief Minister N Rangasamy.

The Chief Minister’s prime rival from the AIADMK belongs to the Nellithope constituency and has represented it twice in the Puducherry Assembly. The comforting factor for the CM is the win of Kumar with a 12,000 votes margin, highest margin in the state.

Since it is a woman-majority constituency, both candidates have been wooing the fairer sex in their campaign tour by promising several welfare schemes.

“My government’s work in the past six months will etch me votes and I am confident of winning this election handsomely,” the Chief Minister told Deccan Chronicle.

Moreover, the election victory would have a substantial impact on the stability of the Congress government that came to power with 15 seats in a 30-member House. The congress had formed the government with the support of its ally DMK, which had two seats in the house.

“The Chief Minister had completed two or three rounds of a door to door visit and met all voters personally. Our camp is fully confident” said a senior Congress leader.

In the last polls, AINRC managed to poll only 598 votes and the candidate lost the deposit. On the other hand, though Mr Sekar had launched a low-key campaign in Nellithope ever since reports surfaced that Mr John Kumar was likely to vacate the seat for Mr Narayanasamy, it gained momentum after the main opposition party AINRC extended its support to Mr Sekar.

Mr Sekar, in a giant-killing act, won the election in 2006 defeating DMK heavyweight and former Chief Minister R. V. Janakiraman and repeated the victory in 2011 by improving the vote share.

But he lost the battle to newcomer John Kumar in 2016 that too in a huge margin. Sekar has got an opportunity to avenge the defeat and also the AIADMK camp is pretty much aware that the election result can change the power equation in the house.

The election result, undoubtedly, would be very crucial for the political career of Mr Narayanasamy. A victory, even if in a low margin, would be an image breaking one for the Chief Minister and would certainly help him to silence the critics inside and outside the party.