Pondy CM avoids media queries on Bedi speech in Assembly

Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy today declined to reply to a query on the address to be made by Lt Governor Kiran Bedi during the upcoming monsoon session of the assembly.
Media persons waiting outside the conference hall of a hotel, asked Narayanasamy whether the session, slated to begin on January 24, would commence with an address by Bedi.
To this, he remained tight-lipped and walked away without responding.
The Chief Minister was here to inaugurate an awareness campaign organised by Petroleum Conservation and research Association.
Official sources told PTI that it is not mandatory that the first session of the House in a New Year should begin with an address by the Lt Governor.

"It has been only a convention and not a constitutional mandate," they said.

The first session of the House usually begins with an address by the Lt Governor.
But, till now there is no information on whether Bedi would deliver her address to the Assembly.
The ruling Congress government and the Lt Governor have been at loggerheads on the issue of administrative and constitutional powers between them.
The latest friction in the ties between Bedi and the territorial government came after the former cancelled the Chief Minister's January 2 order banning use of WhatsApp for official communication even as she (Bedi) was pushing with her plan to promote WhatsApp communication by officials.