Puducherry Assembly Speaker quits on health grounds

Puducherry Assembly Speaker V P Sivakolundhu quit on Sunday citing health reasons even as his brother joined the BJP just over a month ahead of the elections in the union territory. In the resignation letter to Lt Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, a copy of which was made available to mediapersons here, Sivakolundhu, a Congress leader, said he quit as Speaker only on health grounds.

Later, he told P T I that hehanded over the letter of resignation addressed to the Lt Governor to the Assembly Secretary.

Sivakolundhu won from the Lawspet constituency in the 2016 Assembly elections on a Congress ticket.


Meanwhile, Sivakolundhu's brother V P Ramalingam joined the BJP in Karaikal in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who is on a campaign visit.

Also, former DMK legislator K Venkatesan and former Congress legislator K Lakshminarayanan who had quit their MLA posts on February 21 joined the BJP in Karaikal in the presence of Shah who was in Karaikal to address a public meeting.

The Puducherry government headed by V Narayanasamy fell on February 22 after the coalition ministry was reduced to a minority following a spate of resignation of Congress MLAs and a DMK legislator.

President's rule has since been imposed in the union territory while assembly polls are slated for April 6.