Puducherry: Congress-led government loses confidence vote
The Congress-led government in Puducherry lost the confidence vote in the Legislative Assembly on Monday. Assembly Speaker VP Sivakolundhu said announced that the Narayanasamy government could not prove its majority and adjourned the House sine die.
Though Narayanasamy moved the motion seeking the confidence vote minutes after the Assembly met for a special one-day session, he and his ruling side MLAs later walked out before the motion was put for voting. Subsequently, the Speaker declared that the motion stood defeated.
The ruling Congress-DMK alliance failed to prove majority as it has 11 MLAs in the 33-member Legislative Assembly. The opposition has 14 members. The Union Territory will go to polls in April-May later this year.
"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," Narayanasamy said in the Assembly.
Narayanasamy later told reporters that the Speaker's ruling is incorrect. "The BJP government at the Centre, NR Congress and AIADMK have succeeded in dislodging our government by using voting power used by 3 nominated members. This is murder of democracy. The people of Puducherry and this country will teach them a lesson," he said.
Narayanasamy later met Lt Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and tendered his resignation. "Myself, ministers, Congress and DMK MLAs and independent legislator have tendered resignation and sought it be accepted," Narayanasamy told reporters after meeting Tamilisai.
Earlier on Sunday, two more ruling alliance's MLAs resigned. They are Congress' K Lakshminarayanan and DMK's Venkatesan. Lakshminarayanan and Venkatesan submitted their resignation letters separately to Assembly Speaker VP Sivakolundhu at his residence. Lakshminarayanan told reporters that the Narayanasamy government has lost majority. Four Congress MLAs, including ex-ministers A Namassivayam (now in BJP) and Malladi Krishna Rao, had quit, while another party legislator was earlier disqualified. Narayanasamy’s confidante A John Kumar has also resigned.
