President's Rule in Maharshtra: Centre committing 'mayhem of democracy', says Puducherry chief minister V Narayanasamy

Puducherry: Puducherry chief minister V Narayanasamy on Tuesday charged the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre with committing ‘mayhem of democracy’ in Maharashtra and being intolerant of any non-BJP party forming a government in a state. Addressing participants in a demonstration organised near here by the ruling Congress, the chief minister said, “The NDA rule was not tolerant of any non-BJP party forming a government in a state.” [caption id=“attachment_7642281” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Puducherry chief minister V Narayanswamy. Image courtesy: Twitter@VNarayanasami[/caption] The imposition of President’s Rule in Maharashtra is an example to prove that the NDA government is committing mayhem in Maharashtra and this trend was injurious to democracy, he said. The Congress government in the Union territory ‘is struggling day in and day out to run the administration because of denial of funds by the Centre to the territorial government and the blocking of all welfare schemes by the Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi’, he said. Also, he accused the NDA government of deploying sleuths of the Income Tax Department, Enforcement Directorate and the CBI in states where the Congress was holding the reins of administration. Narayanasamy questioned the objection the Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi had raised to his ministerial colleague Shah Jahan and DMK MLA R Siva visiting Singapore recently to attract investors for infrastructure development and tourism projects in Puducherry. “Kiran Bedi is not our boss and we are not slaves to her. We have obtained all the statutorily necessary approval from the Prime Minister and the Union External Affairs Minister in October to proceed to Singapore,” he said adding that Kiran Bedi ‘is not basically interested in development of Puducherry which is why she has been standing in the way of our efforts to develop the Union Territory`. All the files containing the decision of the cabinet to ameliorate a lot of industrial workers, implement free rice scheme and other welfare programmes were returned by the Lt Governor proving that she is totally against the welfare of the people of Puducherry, he said. PCC president and PWD Minister A Namassivayam presided over demonstration organised to condemn the ‘injurious economic policies and anti-people steps of the NDA government’. Congress MP V Vaithilingam, who also spoke, said although the Puducherry government had earmarked a 25-acre site for an upgraded ESIC hospital here, the Centre had not yet released the promised amount to construct the hospital.