Former Member of Parliament M. Ramadass has said that the office of the Lt. Governor should have desisted from wading into the "unfounded, mischievous and trivial" controversy over the term Ondriya Arasu (Union Government) and said that the subsequent clarification from Raj Nivas only served to confound matters.
The term had recently kicked-off a debate over the connotation of the usage from the perspective of Centre-State relations and the principles of federalism after the BJP in Tamil Nadu found Chief Minister M.K. Stalin's preferred reference to the Centre as Ondriya Arasu and not Madhiya Arasu (Central government), objectionable and politically loaded.
The use of the term ‘Union’ by Lt. Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan while administering the oath of office and secrecy to the Council of Ministers of the NDA government on June 27 set off another round of heated chatter on social media.
The Raj Nivas subsequently clarified that the India Ondriya Puducherry Atchipparappu (Indian Union Territory of Puducherry) in the pledge in Tamil referred to the Union Territory of Puducherry.
Weighing in on the issue, Mr. Ramadass said in a statement that the administration of oath of office and secrecy in Tamil to the Council of Ministers by the Lt. Governor on June 27 was perfectly in order and consistent with the long tradition and the constitutional convention.
“However, as the highest constitutional authority, her [Lt. Governor’s] office should have desisted from offering a clarification, especially on the term ‘Union’. The elucidation that the word ‘Union’ applied to the Union Territory of Puducherry and not the Indian Union is a gross constitutional conundrum and historically a bad precedent,” Mr. Ramadass said.
According to him, the term ‘Union’, in the context of oath taking, necessarily pertains only to the Indian Union and not to the Union Territory of Puducherry.
It is only under the Indian Union that the Ministers of the Union Territory of Puducherry took oath and expressed allegiance to the Constitution.
As Puducherry is a Territory of the Indian Union, it is administered and controlled by the Indian Union, represented by the President of India and his representative the L-G. In a recent argument in court, the Solicitor General of India declared that the Union Territory of Puducherry is the property and asset of the Union Government and it can use it in whatever manner it desires.
"In view of this, I hope that the office of L-G offers its clarification and maintains that Puducherry is not a Union but only a Territory of the Indian Union," he said.
