Amidst a flurry of resignations from the party MLAs, Puducherry CM Narayanasamy on Monday suffered another setback as his government failed to prove the majority in the Assembly. The Congress MLAs staged a walkout ahead of the trust vote, just months before the elections are scheduled to be held in the Union territory.
Puducherry CM V.Narayanasamy loses trust vote in Assembly, government falls pic.twitter.com/iFVE9g7jvf
— ANI (@ANI) February 22, 2021
After losing the trust vote on the floor of the assembly, V Narayanasamy has submitted his resignation to LG Tamilisai Soundararajan.
Earlier on Monday, CM Narayanasamy had insisted that his government had the majority to continue governing the Union Territory. Narayanasamy was addressing the Assembly during a special session ahead of the floor test ordered by Lieutenant Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan when he claimed that he had numbers to keep the government afloat.
The chief minister also accused Kiran Bedi, the former Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory, of colluding with the opposition to topple his government. He expressed his gratitude to the MLAs and the alliance partners, saying, “Because of the support of my MLAs, we were able to complete almost five years of our government.”
Furthermore, the chief minister demanded full statehood to the Union Territory to stop the LG from meddling in the affairs.
Puducherry government marred with a slew of resignations
The political turmoil in Puducherry was triggered by a spate of resignations from the Congress MLAs in the last four weeks.
Congress MLA K Lakshminarayanan and DMK MLA K Venkatesan on Sunday quit the alliance and handed over their resignation letters to Puducherry Assembly Speaker VP Sivakozhundu.
In the last week of January, PWD Minister A Namassivayam tendered his resignation from his post as well as a member of the Assembly after Congress suspended him from primary membership on charges of anti-party activities. Following this, another Congress legislator E Theeppainthan also resigned from the Assembly, bringing down the strength of the ruling party to just 12.
On February 16, the Congress government in Puducherry was delivered a body blow when four sitting MLAs decided to call it quits, plunging the government into a crisis. Just a day before that, MLA Malladi Krishna Rao had also submitted his resignation.
