Puducherry govt controlled by Lt Governor: Stalin

Chief Minister M K Stalin on Monday tore into his Puducherry counterpart N Rangasamy for not “raising his voice” against Lt Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan’s action of controlling” and “trampling on the rights” of the democratically elected government.

In his speech at a wedding event of a Puducherry unit functionary, Stalin asked the DMK cadres to start working towards establishing the “Dravidian Model” government in the tiny Union Territory much like Tamil Nadu. He said party cadres should keep in mind that the DMK has had three CMs in the past in Puducherry and the fourth one should govern soon.

Talking about his father M Karunanidhi’s close ties with Puducherry, Stalin said it was the Union Territory where the DMK patriarch’s stage play ‘Santha alias Palaniappan’ was staged.

“People who spoke before me talked about the Dravidian model governance of the DMK. Yes, I feel Puducherry is also in need of the model. You have a democratically elected government here by the people and a tall man is governing the state. He is good at heart, but he is just a puppet,” Stalin said.

“It is the Lt Governor who runs the show, and the Chief Minister doesn’t get to govern the state. Should he (the CM) be ashamed for working according to the diktat of the Governor and shouldn’t he have raised his voice against the governor?” the Tamil Nadu CM asked.

His comments come days after Soundararajan, during an interaction with the media, said that state governments should let governors function on their own and speak their minds. Stalin’s administration is fighting a battle with Governor Ravi, who is sitting on over 20 bills passed by the Assembly.

The Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Bill, 2022 bans online gambling and regulate online games is pending with the Governor since October even as people who lose money to gambling continue to end their lives.

Rangasamy, who quit the Congress to launch his own regional outfit in 2011, heads the NR Congress-BJP coalition government in Puducherry. In his speech, Stalin asked DMK cadres to start preparing for the 2024 Lok Sabha and 2026 assembly polls without any delay.

“We could have come to power in 2021 but we couldn’t. But we shouldn’t lose hope. We should never let communal forces take over Puducherry. Cadres should start working from now,” Stalin said, adding that a call on alliance will be taken close to the elections. In the current Puducherry assembly, the DMK has more MLAs than Congress.