Pondy CM firm on stir, rejects L-G’s invite

“There is absolutely no need for any such meeting. We have placed before her all our proposals and she is quite aware of them,” the Chief Minister told reporters.

Narayanasamy was responding to a question whether he would turn up for the meeting the Lt Governor had scheduled with him at Raj Nivas on February 21 to sort out the issues cited by him for undertaking the dharna.

After making the offer for talks in a letter to Narayanasamy, Bedi had left for New Delhi and would be back on February 20. Narayanasamy has been insisting that he would not end the dharna till at least some of the proposals were cleared.

Besides Narayanasamy, his ministerial colleagues and MLAs of the ruling Congress and its ally DMK are staging the dharna accusing Bedi of adopting a “negative stand” towards the proposals, including free rice scheme, awaiting her approval.

Narayanasamy also accused the Centre of using the Lt Governor as a “pawn” to embarrass the elected government in the union territory.

Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker V Vaithilingam wrote to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh urging him to appoint an interim administrator to bring to an end the “unusual and disturbed situation” in Puducherry as the Cabinet has been staging a dharna outside the Raj Nivas since February 13.

During the day, AICC secretary Sanjay Dutt visited Narayanasamy and alleged that Bedi had become jittery seeing the “overwhelming support” to the protest.