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Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy resigned on Monday after he failed to prove his government’s majority in the Assembly.
Narayanasamy and other Congress members walked out during the debate on the confidence motion and submitted the resignation to Lieutenant Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan.
After the walkout, Speaker VP Sivakolunthu announced in the House that the motion of confidence moved by the Chief Minister was defeated.
The trust vote was necessitated 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.
After submitting the resignation, Narayanasamy blamed the BJP for the political crisis in the State. The Assembly election of Puducherry is due by May, 2021.
“We faced three elections and won all of them. People trusted us. This is a Government elected by the people of Puducherry. The Opposition were not able to defeat us in elections so decided to topple us by other means,” he said.
‘Victory for the people’
V Saminathan, President of BJP’s Puducherry unit and one of the nominated MLAs, said, “This is a victory for the people. This government, which has not fulfilled even one promise made in its election manifesto, has lost the confidence of not only the people who voted for it but also its own legislators and Ministers. The CM’s claim that he could not carry out developmental work due to interference by Kiran Bedi (the erstwhile L-G) and the Centre does not wash.
“Puducherry was not the only Opposition-ruled State. What about Rajasthan, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh? We will decide on our next course of action in consultation with our National President Nadda-ji and Amit Shah-ji.”
RKR Anantharaman, Chief Whip of the Congress Legislature party, said “This was expected. But I expected the Speaker not to allow the nominated BJP members from voting. But it looks like Sivakolunthu came in with an agenda.
‘Will go to court’
“The other side claims that nominated MLAs have the same powers as elected MLAs. And they cite a Supreme Court judgment. My point is that the Election Commission does not allow the nominated MLAs to vote in the Presidential election. So how can they say they stand on equal footing versus the elected MLAs. Look at it this way too: A guy who just got 174 votes in the Assembly election contesting against me (Thanga Vikraman) is a nominated MLA now and his vote has brought down my democratically elected government. Is this fair? We will definitely challenge this in a court of law.”
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