Former Speaker is ruling AINRC candidate in Pondy LS seat

The ruling All India NR Congress (AINRC) in Puducherry today fielded former Assembly Speaker R Radhakrishnan in the union territory's lone Lok Sabha seat.
Puducherry Chief Minister and AINRC founder leader N Rangasamy announced this at a hurriedly-convened press conference at the party headquarters here.
Rangasamy said AINRC is fighting the poll as part of the BJP-led alliance. "We have already made it clear that AINRC would field its candidate and now we will fight the poll as part of the BJP-led alliance," he said.
Radhakrishnan was not present at the press conference.
Asked when Radhakrishnan joined AINRC, the Chief Minister said, "He joined our party the day he quit the Congress."

Rangasamy said he was glad AINRC was an ally of a party that had concern for development and growth of the nation. "We are confident we will procure all measures for development of the people of Puducherry," he said, asserting his party's stand to get full statehood for Puducherry would be insisted in view of its importance and necessity.
Radhakrishnan was member of Puducherry Assembly twice following his election from Kuruvinathan rural constituency in 2001 and successively in 2006. He was nominee of Puducherry Makkal Congress and won the Assembly polls first in 2001. He retained the seat in 2006 as a Congress nominee as the PMC had merged with Congress before the 2006 polls.

Though Radhakrishnan contested the 2011 Assembly polls as the Congress candidate from Bahoor, he was defeated by AINRC's T Thiagarajan, the present electricity minister.