PUDUCHERRY: Puducherry Lt Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundarajan delayed the hoisting of the national tricolour by an hour on the occasion of 74th Republic Day at Beach road Puducherry.
Tamilisai Soundarajan, the Governor of Telangana arrived in Puducherry by flight after participating in the Republic day function in Telangana. Immediately on her arrival at Lawspet airport, she was driven to the venue where she hoisted the flag, inspected a guard of honour and took a salute to march past by various contingents. She also presented medals, distributed awards and witnessed the Tableaux and cultural programmes on the occasion.
This is the second time that Soundararajan had to rush from Telangana to hoist the national flag on the occasion of Republic day. The Republic day function which was scheduled at 9.30 AM began at 10.30 AM.
Later in an interaction with the media, Soundararajan apologised for the delay and said that her aircraft could not land on time due to metrological reasons. Although her flight took off from Hyderabad at 8.01 AM, it could not land at Puducherry airport due to low visibility in terms of meteorological clearance for landing. The plane finally got permission to land, she clarified.
As Puducherry Airport comes under VFR (Visual Flight Rules) aerodrome, the Required Minimum Visibility for Operation is 5000 metres. When the Lt Governor's flight was overhead at Puducherry Airport at 9.38 AM the visibility was low and after the improvement of visibility to 5000 metres, the Aircraft landed safely at time 10.14 AM, Airport Director Vijay Upadhaya stated.
Questions have been raised on the necessity of Soundararajan to hoist the national flag by rushing from another state and violating the convention by arriving late when another dignitary like the Chief Minister could have done it.
It has been two years since Puducherry has functioned under an in-charge Lt Governor and no regular full-time Lt Governor has been appointed by the Government of India. This has been causing several difficulties including a delayed start to a Republic day function with dignitaries, children and people kept waiting.
Leader of Opposition R Siva, former Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, and other leaders as well as people, in general, have questioned the rationale behind posting an in-charge Lt governor for such a long duration when it should have been a stop-gap arrangement for a few months.
Either the Union Government should post Soundararajan as a full-time Lt Governor of Puducherry or appoint someone else, said Siva and Narayanasamy. “Is the Union government unable to find eligible persons for the post?” they asked.