NE NEWS SERVICE
PUDUCHERRY, JULY 24
Puducherry Health Minister Malladi Krishna Rao and three ruling Congress MLAs staged a walkout during the address by Lt Governor Kiran Bedi to the territorial assembly on Friday, protesting her alleged reprimanding of Health staff over COVID-19 management.
As soon as she rose to read out her address, Rao and the MLAs announced their boycott and walked out of the House registering the protest against Bedi for pulling up senior doctors and health staff over the pandemic in the union territory recently, a charge rejected by the Raj Nivas. In her customary address, Bedi said the government led by Chief Minister V Narayanasamy continued to be focussed on the socio-economic development of the people of the union territory with specific emphasis on protecting vulnerable sections of the society.
It was a matter of great pride to all that Puducherry had secured the first position in four governance indicators (human resources development, public health, justice and law and order), she said, while also giving a clean chit to the government on handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The three MLAs who boycotted her address were Parliamentary Secretary K Lakshminarayanan, Government Whip R K R Anandaraman and T Jayamoorthy.
While the Health Minister sported a black shawl around his neck, Jayamoorthy came in a black shirt, in protest against Bedi, who has been locked in a tussle with the government over various issues in the last four years.
Towards the fag end of the address, all the three opposition AIADMK legislators led by A Anbalagan staged a walkout to register their protest against Bedi’s ”belated address” instead of delivering the customary address on the opening day of the current session on July 20.
Bedi, whose scheduled address on the opening day of the budget session was kept in abeyance on Monday over a procedural wrangle related to budget presentation, came to the House on Friday after the government sent her the file for approval and extended a fresh invitation for delivering the address.
While the LG had maintained that the budget was not sent to her for approval under the Union Territory Act before its presentation in the Assembly, the Chief Minister has said it was redundant and she had already cleared it. Narayanasamy, who holds the Finance portfolio, had presented the budget without the address by the Lt Governor, marking another chapter in the power tussle. After the government sent her the budget file, Bedi approved the demands for grants to earmark funds to departments for the fiscal 2020-21.
The Minister and the legislators, who boycotted Bedi’s address, later told reporters that the Lt Governor had made “objectionable comments against the doctors during her visit to the Health Department and also rebuked a senior medical officer in the context of managing the current pandemic situation here.”
Rao alleged Bedi had also made certain derogatory remarks against elected representatives. While government doctors, nursing staff and health workers had staged a demonstration here on Tuesday over Bedi’s remarks during an inspection by her, sources in the Raj Nivas denied the charge and clarified she visited the health department only to ensure that all arrangements were in place to combat the pandemic.
However, later Bedi said there was nothing personal in anything said or done by her. In her policy address on Friday, Bedi also appreciated the “largely peaceful environment and overall maintenance of law and order in the preceding year in Puducherry.”
The government had taken effective initiatives to contain the spread of pandemic in the union territory, she said. “I express my gratitude and appreciation to the medical officers, staff nurses and other health personnel, besides the police and officials of Revenue and other departments and teachers in fighting the spread of the deadly virus.
“Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of Puducherry was estimated at Rs 37,943 crores (current price) for 2019-2020 which is 10.95 per cent higher than the previous year. Detailing the various programmes and achievements in different sectors, the Lt Governor said that in the wake of the New Industrial Policy in 2016, as many as 64 proposals were considered and 36 projects were cleared with an investment of Rs 468.42 crore.
She appealed to people to avoid coming out except under essential circumstances in the wake of the increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in Puducherry, where the tally has risen to 2,513 on Friday.
