Puducherry Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy on Monday accused BJP president J. P. Nadda of spreading “falsehood” on the issue of the closure of textile mills, ration shops, non-disbursement of salaries to employees of cooperative societies and on the devolution of Central funds.
Producing documents before the media, of the communications the Puducherry government had with the Centre and the Lt Governor on these issues at the Puducherry Congress Committee office, the Chief Minister said Mr. Nadda was wrongly briefed by someone on the issues in the UT. “It is regretful that a national president of party spoke at a public meeting without knowing the facts. At least next time when he comes, he should get a proper briefing. I will be writing to him urging him to prove the charges,” he said.
A cabinet meeting on February 13, 2019, decided to introduce VRS as per the wishes of employees of the Anglo French Textiles. The decision was to close the damaged A and B units and run the C unit. But the Lt Governor referred the subject to the Centre as she did not agree with the Cabinet decision, he said. While the Centre wrote back on September 5, 2019 asking the government to elicit the views of Labour Department, the Lt Governor in January 2020 ordered the closure of all units.
Similarly, the Cabinet took a decision to distribute rice and the then Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan on April 13, 2018 agreed to the government proposal. But the Lt Governor on September 5 that year ordered distribution of money to the beneficiaries’ accounts, he said.
The money for providing salary to employees of societies was set aside in the budget but the Lt Governor refused to accord financial sanction, he said. “We are not responsible for the closure of mills, ration shops and not disbursing salary to the employees. It was the Centre and Lt Governor who are responsible for these decisions,” he charged.
On the charge that Central assistance was reduced from 70% to 30% when he was a Central Minister, the Chief Minister said the proposal was agreed to by Mr. Rangasamy when he was the Chief Minister. “Mr. Rangasamy agreed for the proposal so as to borrow money from the open market. If I was the CM, I wouldn't have agreed to the decision,” he said.
Former Union Minister Veerappa Moily, who is one of the party election in-charges for the UT, said the Congress will not be affected by the defections to BJP. “We will be able to cleanse the party of defectors before the election and it will help in rejuvenating the party. We were expecting these kinds of developments because BJP has adopted poaching as a method to establish the party rule after they came to power in 2014. In around 10 States they adopted poaching from other parties to establish their rule. It came a bit late in the UT,” he said
