Pitch imperfect in Puducherry
The administrative cauldron in Puducherry continues to simmer following the Supreme Court’s notice to Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, restraining his Congress-led government from implementing any Cabinet decision with financial implications till the next hearing on June 21.
The chief minister and the Lieutenant Governor, Kiran Bedi, have been on a warpath regarding control of the administration, which included the method of giving instructions to government officials.
Earlier, the Madras High Court had ruled that the L-G could only act on the advice of the council of ministers in matters of finance, administration and service. Narayanasamy had hailed the verdict as a victory for democracy.
But the June 5 Supreme Court ruling has delayed his administrative march.
The initial tremors had been felt soon after Bedi took charge in May 2016. Resenting her style of using social media to issue instructions to government officials, the chief minister prohibited official communication from those platforms.
Bedi stuck to her guns, saying the CM’s order was against the law. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, who has a similar bitter relationship with his Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, has met his Puducherry counterpart and demanded statehood for both the regions.
The ongoing saga is more about treasury-hurting populism and performance, rather than a democracy-denting script. This was seen when Bedi had set a precondition to the CM’s scheme of free distribution of rice to villagers, saying only those villages that were “open defecation free” would be entitled to it.
The political compulsions of offering freebies openly clashed with Bedi’s model of performance-oriented benefits. Now, the legal battle on redrawing the contours of power has choked development projects. This is also sending confusing signals to the people on basic governance.
Bedi’s fast-track order on making helmets compulsory for two-wheeler riders that was bitterly resisted by the CM is a case in point.
Unless the ongoing slugfest ends, Puducherry and its residents will continue to be the punching bag of the ego match between the elected and the appointed.