BJP wanted to rule Puducherry by proxy, says Narayanasamy

Accusing former L-G Kiran Bedi of interfering in the day-to-day affairs of the government and trying to run a parallel government by holding review meetings of departments, he said he “fought her every single day”.

“Ultimately, we succeeded when she was thrown out of Puducherry last week, days after we met the President with a demand to recall her. The new L-G (Tamilisai Soundararajan) is also acting in a biased manner. We had almost completed our tenure when they toppled the government today… We will fight against the BJP,” he said.

When asked about the logic behind ‘toppling’ a government just before the polls, he said the BJP wanted to ensure that the Congress was not ruling Puducherry during the election. “They always wanted to rule Puducherry by proxy,” he said.

On his trusted aides and senior ministers being poached by rival parties, Narayanasamy said they were being lured by the BJP through false promises. “The BJP has been using investigating agencies to lure people in Puducherry, like in other states where they toppled governments… Why didn’t they (MLAs) do this in the last five years? They decided to join the BJP because the term of the government was going to end and because it was lucrative,” he said, referring to five of the seven MLAs who resigned to join the BJP.

When asked if he saw the crisis coming, Narayanasamy said he knew about the BJP’s game plan three months ago. “I tried to give the MLAs confidence. But you cannot stop greedy people,” he said.

Dismissing the charges made by Narayanasamy, V Saminathan, BJP state president and one of the nominated MLAs, said, “The BJP has no role to play in the fall of this government. It was a highly corrupt government that collapsed on its own due to mismanagement and poor governance. If BJP was the reason, why did their health minister and senior leader Malladi Krishna Rao resign? Why did they disqualify an MLA last year itself? This government lost the majority because it was a failure.”