Battle of friends in Puducherry: Narayanasamy and Ramadoss

It will be a battle between two friends in the Union Territory of Puducherry where Union Minister of State and Congress General Secretary V Narayanasamy is taking on his college mate and PMK nominee M Ramadoss in the May 13 Lok Sabha polls.

The two, who had shared a close friendship while studying in the Government Tagore Arts College ( My College! I too completed my graduation ) here in the 1960s, have turned rivals with the PMK dumping the DMK-Congress led DPA and joining the AIADMK-led front for the polls.

Mr. Ramadoss had won the seat in 2004 when the PMK was alloted the seat as part of the then rainbow alliance formed by DMK.

With PMK's exit, the ruling Congress had secured the lone Lok Sabha seat in the Union Territory for itself and fielded Mr. Nararyanasamy, a three-time Rajya Sabha member.

Both Mr. Narayanasamy and Mr. Ramadoss, in their 60s now, belong to semi-urban pockets of Nonankuppam and Murungapakkam localities of this former French colony respectively.

"He was my closest classmate. We used to study the subject of economics together. We would peruse the books taken from the library in the college," Mr. Narayanasamy said.

Mr. Ramadoss too recalled his close association with Mr. Narayanasamy in the college days and said he never expected then that they would one day battle it out in poll arena."I did not then expect that we would lock horns in elections."

Source