Puducherry Assembly Adjourned On Stormy Note Just After 24-Minute Session

The Puducherry Assembly which met here on Friday was adjourned sine die after holding a session for 24 minutes.

The House passed the demands for additional grants for the year 2022-2023 sought by Chief Minister N Rangasamy and his cabinet colleagues for their respective departments. The House also passed the Appropriation Bill tabled by the Chief Minister.

Earlier, the Speaker R Selvam made an obituary reference as soon as the House commenced proceedings regarding the death of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. The Speaker paid glowing tributes to the Queen who died on September 8, 2022. All the legislators stood in silence for a couple of minutes in memory of the late queen.

After obituary reference, all the six opposition DMK members led by the legislature party leader R Siva who came dressed in school uniforms and carried bags to symbolically show that school students were yet to receive uniforms, urged the government to come out with a resolution on statehood for Puducherry.

Siva said that it was indeed "a pity that the elected government in Puducherry had no power even to decide the transfer of officials." Another DMK member A M H Nazeem said democracy was made a mockery in Puducherry with the elected government "being bereft of powers." He said the government should come out with a resolution to assert full statehood to Puducherry.

Independent member G Nehru registered his strong protest against posting of an IAS officer as Commissioner of Puducherry Municipality virtually without the knowledge of the government and demanded that statehood be granted to Puducherry.

At one point, all the DMK legislators shouted "we want statehood and Puducherry should not be hoodwinked on the statehood issue." The Speaker repeatedly asked the members to remain calm and his appeals, however, were not heeded.

The DMK members staged a walkout for a while and returned to the House a few minutes later.

The two Congress members in the House also staged a walkout a few minutes before the DMK members did so.

The House adopted the Appropriation Bill tabled by the Chief Minister. The Speaker announced adjournment of the House sine die. The session lasted for 24 minutes.