MLAs were made to support Opposition’s stand, so I resigned: V Narayanasamy

Puducherry’s former Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, who failed a trust vote in the legislative assembly on Monday, alleged that some of the MLAs were made to support the Opposition’s stand and so he and his supporters walked out of the House, went to the Lieutenant Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and submitted his resignation. Soundararajan had ordered a floor test last Monday.

“House was summoned on my request and motion was taken up. One of our members raised the issue that the nominated members have no voting rights…The 3 nominated members were told to support the Opposition’s stand,” Narayanasamy told ANI, after losing the trust vote in the Assembly.

“Since they were made to vote we walked out of House, went to Lt Governor and submitted the resignation. Since the ruling party was not there, Speaker should’ve taken the vote of the Opposition and declared that the confidence motion has been defeated. There is a flaw in [Speaker’s] procedure,” he added.

Minutes after the Puducherry Assembly met for a special one-day session, Narayanasamy moved the motion seeking the confidence vote. He and his ruling side MLAs later walked out before the motion was put for voting. Later, Speaker VP Sivakolundhu announced that the motion stood defeated.  

 The Congress-led Puducherry government has fallen, barely two months before the scheduled assembly election. The ruling Congress’ strength in the Puducherry legislative assembly came down to 12 out of a total of 28. The rival NR Congress-led alliance has 14 MLAs now.