2021 Puducherry Legislative Assembly election

The fifteenth legislative assembly election was held on 6 April 2021 to elect members from 30 constituencies of the 15th Puducherry Assembly in the union territory of Puducherry in India. The National democratic alliance has won a simple majority

Background
In the previous elections in 2016, the election brought a change of power as the All India N.R. Congress (AINRC), which had formed the government under N. Rangaswamy, lost its majority to the Indian National Congress (INC), led by V. Narayanasamy.

In the previous elections in 2016 Indian National Congress (INC) emerged as Single Largest Party with 15 seats, with the support of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) the government was formed. However, a trust vote was called after five MLAs of the Congress, including two ministers, and one DMK MLA resigned from the Assembly. Two of the Congress leaders had joined the BJP which is in alliance with Opposition NR Congress in the Union Territory. The ruling party lost the trust vote after the speaker decided to accept votes from nominated MLAs on equal standing to the elected ones. The outgoing chief minister Narayanasamy commented that the Lieutenant Governor, who was a former president of BJP, had appointed members of her own party for all nominated seats, including one who garnished only 174 votes when he contested in regular elections.

After the 2021 election, the Lt Governor once again granted all the non-elected MLAs to BJP, and thus making it the second largest party with 1/3rd of the seats solely from nominated members rather than directly elected by the people.

CPIM contested the Muthialpet seat and supported the alliance in all other seats.

PMK supports this alliance without contesting in any seat.

Government formation
Even though results for the election were declared on 2 May, the government formation was finalized on 8 June. The results were with NDA winning 16 seats (AIRNC :- 10, BJP :- 6) and UPA winning 9 seats (DMK :- 6, INC :- 2, Independent :- 1) and 5 Independents not backed by either of the alliance won. Immediately the NDA unanimously elected N. Rangaswamy from AIRNC as the CM, and the UPA elected R.Siva from the DMK as the Leader Of Opposition. Post results the central government nominated 3 MLAs affiliated to the BJP, thereby taking NDA to 19 seats and BJP to 9. Furthermore, before the swearing in of the government, 3 Independent MLAs pledged support to AIRNC and 2 Independent MLAs pledged support to BJP, also the 1 Independent MLA backed by UPA during election later switched allegiance to BJP. The NDA MLAs increased to 25 and UPA decreased to 8. Even after the swearing in ceremony of the CM, the talks between AIRNC and BJP on cabinet composition and assembly speaker continued for more than a month. On 8 June the alliance announced that the BJP would get 2 ministers and the post of assembly speaker, while AIRNC will get 3 ministers.