Puduchery is the new battle ground for the BJP in its mission to rid the country of the Congress — which in any way is in self-destruct mode, what with its leaders in different states breaking out, deserting a sinking ship.

The minute the assembly election results came out, even before the Congress could rejoice its consolation victory in Puducherry, its traditional bastion incidentally snatched away previously by a breakaway Congress leader, the BJP send out a strong signal that it means business – by sending Kiran “Crane” Bedi as the Lt Governor.

True to her high profile image, as the country’s first woman IPS officer, Magasaysay Award winner and tennis player of repute and many other things, Bedi began with a bang. Even as Gandhi family retainer and former minister in PMO during Manmohan Singh regime, V Narayansamy took oath of office and secrecy, she fired her first salvo — no beacon lights on VIP cars and no stopping of traffic to make way for these worthies.

A decision for sure going to be a popular one, given the untold miseries people have to go through due to VIP movement.

Narayansamy has, for the time being, accepted the situation meekly and said he would surrender the beacon lights etc and instead use his own personal car for official purposes too. But whether his ministers heed to his advise on keeping Bedi in good humor remains to be seen as, in the beginning itself the Gandhi family loyalist finds the going tough.

If remains to be seen if any Congress MLA would agree to vacate a seat for him. Narayansamy has to get elected to the assembly within six months, failing which he will cease to be a chief minister.

Besides, there is a persistent danger of a section of Congressmen revolting, if the Congress men are seeing how the party is breaking up in other parts of the country and decide to press the issue.

For the moment, Narayansamy has made peace with the other two contenders for the chief minister’s post, but poilitical obsevers do not rule out the possibiity of a section of the Congress breaking out and playing ball with the breakaway Congress leader and former chief minister N Rangasamy, who had joined the NDA during the 2014 general elections.

With Kiran Bedi signalling her intentions very clearly, Puducherry for sure has the potential to be a political hotspot in the days to come, the theatre where another episoide of the ongoing fight to the finish between the BJP and the Congress would be played out.

Puducherry has the potential to become another Delhi — where the elected government headed by Kejriwal is at logger heads with the Lt Governor, who is a central government appointee and there are allegations that he is not allowing Kejriwal government to function normally.