CONG GOVT LOSES THIN MAJORITY; BEDI REMOVED AS LT GUV OF PUDUCHERRY

CHENNAI: Another Congress MLA resigned from the Puducherry assembly on Tuesday – four have quit since January – bringing the party below the majority mark in the House, a development that came a day ahead of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the Union Territory and just months before assembly elections there.

Hours later, Kiran Bedi was replaced as the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, with the Telangana governor being given additional charge of the UT.

With Congress MLA A John Kumar’s resignation on Tuesday, the Congress’s tally in the 33-member assembly dropped to 10. Kumar, seen as a close aide of chief minister V Narayanasamy, resigned after health minister Malladi Krishna Rao announced he was quitting the House on Monday. Two Congress MLAs resigned in January.

Congress said that its alliance held the majority even as Opposition demanded Narayanasamy’s resignation. “We have a majority and we will continue to function,” the CM said.

NEW DELHI: The senior Bharatiya Janata Party leadership on Tuesday held a meeting with legislators and MPs from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan to chalk out a strategy to prevent the ongoing farmers’ stir from stoking unrest among the Jat community, which is part of the party’s support base in the northern states.

At the meeting, chaired by party chief JP Nadda, which was attended by home minister Amit Shah and agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar, the MLAs and MPs were directed to counter the “misinformation campaign” on the laws.

The leaders were asked to submit a feedback, a person familiar with the details of the meeting said. “The party is concerned by the implications that a Jat stir can have on the fate of the Manohar Lal Khattar government in Haryana and on the outcome of the elections in Western UP,” a functionary said.

In Haryana, the BJP with its 40 legislators in the 90-member assembly runs a coalition government with JJP, which counts Jats as its main vote-bank.

“The farmers’ stir has put a strain on the alliance as JJP is under pressure from the Jat Panchayats to walk out. Several JJP leaders have already demanded the repeal of the farm laws and a protracted agitation will not augur well for the government,” the functionary explained.

Last week, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attended a Kisan Mahapanchayat in UP.

In UP, the party wants to placate the community ahead of the polls as at least 73 seats in the western region of the state are considered to hold the key to the chief minister’s chair. “The government has maintained from the beginning that it is ready for talks but the farmers have to tell us where they think the laws will hurt them,” a minister said.