Puducherry: Narayanasamy says he sent emails to President, PM seeking Bedi’s recall

PUDUCHERRY: Puducherry chief minister V Narayanasamy, who is spearheading an agitation against lieutenant governor Kiran Bedi since Wednesday afternoon in front of Raj Nivas accusing her of interfering with the day-to-day administration of the elected government, has urged Union home minister Rajnath Singh to intervene immediately and advise Bedi to function in a democratic way and address the people’s issues raised by him.

In an email to the Union home minister dated February 15, Narayanasamy accused Bedi of running a ‘parallel day-to-day administration blocking the welfare schemes covering the scheduled caste, backward classes, fishermen and other down-trodden people’.

“She (Bedi) neither cared for the decision of the Cabinet nor cared to follow the rule of the law. With her high-handed, arm-twisting and autocratic style of governance in Puducherry UT, democracy is gasping for breath,” he said.

He said he wrote a letter to her on February 7 listing her various ‘commissions and omissions’ (39 demands) affecting the governance and all sections of people of Puducherry. He said the entire cabinet along with MLAs resorted to a peaceful protest in front of Raj Nivas from February 13. “But as a proof of her self-styled nature and complete belief in autocracy, she left Puducherry on February 14 morning with the security of paramilitary police. While passing through us she did not even have the courtesy of talking with us,” he said.

Narayanasamy claimed that her tour outside Puducherry has nothing to do with Puducherry. “It is totally for very trivial reasons and self-promotion...She is returning only on February 20 and she has time to meet is only on February 21,” he said.

The chief minister said her actions revealed her nature of ‘intentional disrespect to the elected institutions and a recurrence of her playing fiddle when Rome was burning’. “Our peaceful assembly in front of Raj Nivas will continue round the clock until our demands are met,” Narayanasamy said.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday morning, Narayanasamy said he has written to President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Rajnath Singh, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley and Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj urging them to recall Bedi.

He said he also wrote to AICC president Rahul Gandhi explaining the reasons for the ongoing dharna. Rahul had directed political advisors Venugopal and Ahmed Patel and AICC secretary Mukul Wasnik to call on Rajnath Singh and urge him to take an appropriate action on the complaints against Bedi, said Narayanasamy.