Former MP M. Ramadass said on Sunday that the failure to forward to the Centre the latest unanimous resolution adopted by the legislative Assembly on Statehood for Puducherry could only be attributed to sheer incompetence or mala fide motives of the authorities.
In a statement, Mr. Ramadass said the statement in Parliament of Nityanand Rai, Minister of State for Home, that revealed that the resolution passed unanimously by the Puducherry Assembly on March 31 this year seeking Statehood was not received by the Ministry of Home Affairs was shocking and defied logic and reason.
“It demonstrates either the conspicuous inefficiency of the administration or the mala fide motives of the authorities, or both, in holding back the resolution”, he said.
He pointed out that while the Chief Minister was stoically silent when the issue was put to him, the Lt. Governor had responded “irrelevantly and nonchalantly” that she would provide reservations to government school students in medical colleges.
Pointing out that the legislators resolution reflected a long-felt aspiration of the people, Mr. Ramadass said: “By not treating the resolution of the Assembly with the seriousness and urgency that it deserves and dilly-dallying it for four months, the Chief Minister and the L-G have shattered the sanctity and honour of the Assembly and disgraced the legislators and through them the people of Puducherry”.
According to him, the Lt. Governor had failed in her constitutional responsibility and the duty cast upon her by the Union Territory Act, 1963. In fact, the Lt. Governor had some time ago betrayed her disfavour for the Statehood proposal through her remark that development projects would occur irrespective of whether Puducherry was a State or U.T.
Pointing out that the Chief Minister’s commitment to the cause was also under scrutiny now, Mr. Ramadass said it was not too late for the government to prepare a feasibility report by the experts drawn from the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi.
Such a report could examine key issues such as whether Puducherry was economically and financially viable to sustain as a State, the administrative challenge of merging into an organic entity of a State the four geographically, culturally, and linguistically separate exclaves and whether granting of Statehood would contravene the provisions of the International Treaty of Accession signed on May 28, 1956, between the Governments of India and France, and if so, how to deal with the issue. The demand could be substantiated by previous reports on Statehood prepared by panels such as the Sushma Swaraj Committee of Home Affairs, he said.
Pointing out that political mobilisation on the issue was also imperative, Mr. Ramadass felt that an all-party meeting needed to be convened to evolve a consensus on the modalities of attaining Statehood. The Chief Minister should also lead an all party delegation to meet the Prime Minister and Home Minister and submit the Statehood demand.
