Puducherry Political Crisis: Chief Minister Narayanasamy Seeks Confidence Vote In Assembly
"We have won all the by-elections. It is clear that people of Puducherry trust us," said CM V.Narayanasamy while addressing in the assembly.
By : migrator
Update: 2021-02-22 05:22 GMT
Puducherry
Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy on Monday sought a confidence vote for his government, as the territorial Assembly met for a special session for a floor test of his five-year old government that has been reduced to a minority following resignations by ruling dispensation members.
Moving the motion, the chief minister told the Assembly that his government had the majority.
Apparently referring to former Lt Governor Kiran Bedi constantly being at loggerheads with him on administrative matters, he said that he had however, delivered for the union territory, including effectively handling the Covid-19 pandemic.
He lashed out at Bedi, saying she had 'conspired' against the government on matters including revenue generation.
"Those rejected by people cospired to topple our government but we stayed firm due to our resilience," he said.
Amid a political crisis in the Union Territory, a floor test in Puducherry Assembly is set to take place today as per directions of Lieutenant Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan.
The one-day special session of the Puducherry Assembly, that will decide the fate of the Congress government, was underway here on Monday morning.
"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,"said CM V.Narayanasamy while addressing in the assembly.
"I am supporting the existing government. I don't want to change my opinion. I think the existing minister will not have majority support in the assembly," said V Ramachandran, Independent MLA (MAHE constituency) at Puducherry Assembly.
Meanwhile, Narayanasamy had met Deputy speaker Balan before arriving at the legislative Assembly. Media reports also said that Chief Minister Narayanasamy might opt to dissolve the Government along with the supporting DMK MLAs as the ruling government lost its majority as two of its MLAs had quit on Sunday.
The resignation by Congress MLA K Lakshminarayanan and DMK legislator Venkatesan further reduced the strength of the ruling alliance to 12, while the opposition has 14 MLAs in the 33-member Assembly, which has seven vacancies.
It was also reported that CM Narayanasamy has defied that the Nominated MLAs be permitted to take part in the floor test.
"We are going for the floor test today. Till now, we have the majority," said RKR Anantharaman, Chief Whip Puducherry.
This comes after two Congress MLAs A John Kumar and Lakshmi Narayanan and DMK MLA K Venkatesan resigned from their Assembly membership.
Earlier, the Lt Governor ordered a floor test in assembly on February 22. Puducherry is going to Assembly polls later this year. The dates are yet to be announced.
READ MORE: Tamilisai orders floor test in Pondy
On Sunday, Chief Minister V Narayanasamy held a meeting with Congress and DMK MLAs to discuss further strategy.
Briefing the reporters later, Narayanasamy had said, "I held a meeting with ministers, MLAs of Congress and DMK, MPs and other party leaders today. We discussed the strategy to be adopted in the Legislative Assembly tomorrow. We have decided to disclose our strategy on the floor of the House."
(With inputs from ANI and PTI)
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