PUDUCHERRY: If one is to go by the recent history of Puducherry politics, taking up the post of education minister appears to be jinxed. For, after being an education minister, politicians here have not just lost their post and never returned to it, but their political careers have also taken a nosedive.The most recent case being PML Kalyanasundaram, who was sacked for indulging in impersonation to write his Class X exam, just five months after assuming the post. Others who have held the post and never again became ministers include A Gandhiraj, L Joseph Mariodass and A V Subramanian, with the sole exception of incumbent Chief Minister N Rangasamy. M O H F Shajahan, who was the higher education minister in the previous government, failed to make it to the Assembly in the last elections. K Lakshminarayanan, Cong MLA, who had held the post in 2001, resigned in 2005 as minister, after his mentor P Kannan quit the Congress to float Puducherry Munnetra Congress (PMC). Though he was elected an MLA in the 2006 polls and this year, his party (PMC) merged with the Congress and he lost the opportunity to become a minister.Subramanian, the PCC president, hailing from Karaikal, who took over the portfolio in 2001 for a tenure of less than six months, never became a minister again, since in the new government under Rangasamy he was left out to accommodate PMC. In the 2006 polls, he lost the elections and this year he had to bow out due to coalition compulsions.S P Sivakumar (DMK) held the post in 1996 and continued until 2000, till the government fell. In the 2001 and 2006 elections he got elected, but this year he has not even made it to the Assembly. He was not given a seat due to coalition politics. Gandhiraj (1991-1996), Mariadoss (1985-1990) and N Manimaran also held the post, but they have never returned even as MLAs.The jinx was broken by Rangasamy when he rejected the designation of education minister for the first time in 2000. In fact, he did not turn up in his office for more than a week after the allocation of portfolios to take up his responsibilities as minister of education along with tourism, art and culture, believing that the jinx would befall him. Later, he got himself re-designated as tourism minister instead of education minister and a new notification was issued by the government. This was ridiculed by many MLAs, including S P Sivakumar, stating that being an education minister was a pride, but Rangasamy stuck to his guns. After he won the 2001 election and became the PWD minister and subsequently the Chief Minister in the same year, many believed that the jinx of being an education minister had been broken. Lakshminarayanan, who had no faith in the fallacy and preferred being known as education minister and earned a name for himself, after the 2006 election failed to become a minister.Since then no minister in Puducherry got himself designated as education minister. Shajahan, who took over the post on two occasions, designated himself as information technology minister and PWD minister. In 2008, the education portfolio was split with Shajahan holding higher education and then chief minister Vaithilingam holding school education. However, in this year’s elections, Shajahan did not make it to the Assembly and Vaithilingam is out of power, sitting as leader of Opposition.Even when the Rangasamy government came to power after this year’s elections, there was tussle for plum portfolios, but education figured nowhere. However, Rangasamy offered it to Kalyanasundaram along with all other portfolios held by Shajahan whom he defeated in the Assembly election. But again he was not designated as education minister, but as transport minister, one of the other portfolio he held. But even that did not save him and had to bow out after serving one of the lowest periods as minister. It would be intriguing to see whether he is able to break the jinx and return.
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