Puducherry CM V Narayanasamy loses trust vote in Assembly. “MLAs should stay loyal to the party. MLAs who have resigned will not be able to face the people as people will call them opportunists,” said Puducherry CM as the government loses the majority. After concluding his speech, the CM along with his ministers walked out of the Assembly.
Narayanasamy today lost the trust vote necessitated after the resignation of Congress MLAs, which put the government on shaky ground. Ahead of the trust vote, the chief minister accused former Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi of scuttling his government’s works and colluding with the Opposition to try and topple the government.
“As our MLAs stayed united, we managed to pull off the last 5 years. The Centre has betrayed the people of Puducherry by not granting funds we requested,” Narayanasamy said. He added, “We formed the government with the support of DMK and independent MLAs. After that, we faced various elections. We have won all the by-elections. It is clear that people of Puducherry trust us.”
In yet another jolt to Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, two more MLAs of the Congress-DMK alliance in Puducherry resigned on Sunday. With this, the ruling side’s strength further depleted to 11 against the Opposition’s 14 in the 33-member assembly. The trust vote will take place on Monday. The floor test was ordered by Lt Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan after a bout of resignations reduced the strength of the Congress-DMK combine in the assembly to 11. The opposition, which has 14 MLAs, petitioned the Lt Governor, saying the government has been reduced to a minority and it should prove its strength in the assembly.
On Sunday, Congress member K Lakshminarayanan and DMK’s K Venkatesan quit the assembly, with the former saying the government lacked a majority. The present party position in the assembly: Congress (nine, including Speaker), DMK two, All-India NR Congress seven, AIADMK four, BJP three (all nominated with voting rights) and one independent who has supported the government. There are seven vacancies.
Chief Minister V Narayanasamy attacked the BJP over the language row and claimed that the party was forcibly trying to impose Hindi in Puducherry. Elections are due by May in Puducherry and neighbouring Tamil Nadu, besides Kerala, West Bengal and Assam. The BJP does not expect much from Tamil Nadu and Kerala at this point but feels it has a better chance in Puducherry, with the Congress weakened.