Puducherry: Cong alleges corruption in procurement of laptops for students, to seek CBI probe

He further said Puducherry was now cutting a sorry figure with the Lt Governor running a parallel government. The smart city scheme of the Central government involving Central funds had been kept on hold since the last one year, he claimed.He also charged the Chief Minister with having failed to deliver on the promises made to the people during the run-up to the Assembly polls here in 2021.

The opposition Congress in Puducherry will meet the President soon and seek a CBI probe into the modalities adopted by the territorial government in procuring laptops for distribution to the school students, senior party leader V Narayanasamy said here on Saturday.

The former Puducherry Chief Minister told reporters that a detailed petition would be presented by the party to President Droupadi Murmu soon, bringing to her notice the alleged 'Himalayan corruption involved in the choice of the company for purchase of the laptops at a cost of Rs 63 crore.' He said that the government should have called for a global tender to procure the laptops but had decided on a company and purchased the computers meant for students of higher secondary schools.

He said there were several companies who could have supplied laptops of high quality, but one was at a loss to know as to why the government did not choose them and instead selected a company unilaterally for the supply of laptops. Narayanasamy also charged the Lt Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan with running a parallel government here and said that she was indulging in only 'publicity' by claiming that the Puducherry government had implemented several Centrally-sponsored schemes to ameliorate the lot of the people. ''Soundararajan has been holding functions at various places associating only officials while the Chief Minister, Ministers and legislators were absent either at the inauguration of centrally sponsored schemes or in handing over benefits of the schemes to the targeted sections,'' he alleged. He further said Puducherry was now cutting a sorry figure with ''the Lt Governor running a parallel government.'' The smart city scheme of the Central government involving Central funds had been kept on hold since the last one year, he claimed.

He also charged the Chief Minister with having failed to deliver on the promises made to the people during the run-up to the Assembly polls here in 2021. ''Nothing had been done to get statehood for Puducherry. There are no firm measures on the part of the Chief Minister to get Puducherry included in the Central Finance Commission,'' he alleged.