Congress will overcome designs to topple govt: CM V Narayanasamy

Puducherry Chief Minister V

Narayanasamy on Friday accused the Centre of trying to topple his government with the help of opposition AINRC and AIADMK and asserted that the ruling Congress would overcome all such designs.

A day after Lt Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan directed him to prove his majority in the assembly on February 22, he also hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging he was functioning like "an autocrat".

Narayanasamy was talking to reporters after a joint meeting of leaders and representatives of the Congress-led Secular Democratic Alliance to discuss the current political situation in the union territory.

Meanwhile, official sources said the assembly would meet at 10 am on Monday for taking up the trust vote.

The chief minister alleged the BJP-led Central government had "exposed its intention of mayhem of democracy" in states where the opposition was in power by unleashing Income Tax, the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI.

Narayanasamy, whose government has lost majority after a spate of resignations by Congress MLAs, said it had been the "practice and design" of the Modi government to disturb Congress governments in states like Goa, Manipur, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and now in Puducherry.

"We will overcome all such designs and we have faced successfully all attempts of the Centre to rock the boat in Puducherry in association with the AIADMK and the AINRC in Puducherry," he said.

Narayanasamy said the February 21 meeting of the Congress MLAs would come out with an "action plan" over the trust vote, adding he had been consulting legal experts on whether the nominated legislators had the right to vote on a motion of confidence in the assembly.

In the 33-member assembly with an effective strength of 28, the Congress has ten members, including the Speaker, while its alliance partner DMK has three and lone independent from Mahe region also supports it.

The opposition parties also have 14 members, including the three nominated (BJP), and have said that the ruling dispensation no longer has a majority.

Narayanasamy described as a "historic blunder" the three nominated MLAs being referred as BJP members in the communication by the Lt Governor on convening of the special assembly session for the floor test.

He claimed the plea of the three for recognition as the BJP representatives was pending as per assembly records and a lot of formalities needed to be completed.

He has written a letter on Fridayto the Lt Governor seeking clarification as to how she had described the three nominated legislators as BJP members while giving the break up of parties in the assembly.

Treating them as BJP MLAs by theLt Governor in her order issued Thursday for floor test "is incorrect and is totally in contravention of the records of the Assembly," he claimed.

The Chief Minister said leaders and delegates of 17 parties, including the DMK, participated in the meeting of the Secular Democratic Alliance.