Social Welfare Minister M. Kandasamy has upped the ante against Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi by formally complaining to President Ram Nath Kovind about her style of functioning.
In his eight-page letter to the President, Mr. Kandasamy said he would be forced to adopt the strategy of Mahatma Gandhi to launch a non-violent agitation against Ms. Bedi if she continued functioning the way she did.
Listing the charges against Ms Bedi, the Minister said if the present state of stalemate was not eased within the next three months he would be forced to hold a dharna in front of Parliament in January.
Marked to PM
“I don’t see any means other than indefinite hunger strike. I humbly request your good self to help the elected Government of Puducherry fulfil the democratic duties and serve the people,” he said in the letter, which was marked to the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister.
As a Minister representing the backward class community, it was his duty to provide link roads and streetlights to settlements of the Dalit communities as per the request of elected representatives.
The Lt. Governor had found fault in constructing streetlights in settlements and threatened officials of action on complaints being received about corruption in setting up high-mast lamps. However, she herself had told at a meeting on October 5 that the inquiry into complaints of corruption in setting up high-mast lamps was taken up with the intention of “warning but not to punish.”
The bureaucrats who functioned judiciously were unable to function and accomplish their duties, he said in the letter.
The Minister also brought to the knowledge of President the delay caused in waiving loans taken by farmers from cooperative banks and in the development of port due to the interference of Ms. Bedi.
