Congress will overcome designs to topple govt: Narayanasamy

Puducherry Chief Minister VNarayanasamy on Friday accused the Centre of trying to topplehis government with the help of opposition AINRC and AIADMKand asserted that the ruling Congress would overcome all suchdesigns.

A day after Lt Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan directedhim to prove his majority in the assembly on February 22, healso hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging he wasfunctioning like ''an autocrat''.

Narayanasamy was talking to reporters after a jointmeeting of leaders and representatives of the Congress-ledSecular Democratic Alliance to discuss the current politicalsituation in the union territory.

Meanwhile, official sources said the assembly would meetat 10 am on Monday for taking up the trust vote.

The chief minister alleged the BJP-led Central governmenthad ''exposed its intention of mayhem of democracy'' in stateswhere the opposition was in power by unleashing Income Tax,the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI.

Narayanasamy, whose government has lost majority after aspate of resignations by Congress MLAs, said it had been the''practice and design'' of the Modi government to disturbCongress governments in states like Goa, Manipur, Karnataka,Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and now in Puducherry.

''We will overcome all such designs and we have facedsuccessfully all attempts of the Centre to rock the boat inPuducherry in association with the AIADMK and the AINRC inPuducherry,'' he said.

Narayanasamy said the February 21 meeting of theCongress MLAs would come out with an ''action plan'' over thetrust vote, adding he had been consulting legal experts onwhether the nominated legislators had the right to vote on amotion of confidence in the assembly.

In the 33-member assembly with an effective strength of28, the Congress has ten members, including the Speaker, whileits alliance partner DMK has three and lone independentfrom Mahe region also supports it.

The opposition parties also have 14 members, includingthe three nominated (BJP), and have said that the rulingdispensation no longer has a majority.

Narayanasamy described as a ''historic blunder'' the threenominated MLAs being referred as BJP members in thecommunication by the Lt Governor on convening of the specialassembly session for the floor test.

He claimed the plea of the three for recognition as theBJP representatives was pending as per assembly records and alot of formalities needed to be completed.

He has written a letter on Fridayto the Lt Governorseeking clarification as to how she had described the threenominated legislators as BJP members while giving the break upof parties in the assembly.

Treating them as BJP MLAs by theLt Governor in herorder issued Thursday for floor test ''is incorrect and istotally in contravention of the records of the Assembly,'' heclaimed.

The Chief Minister said leaders and delegates of 17parties, including the DMK, participated in the meeting of theSecular Democratic Alliance.