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Rice issue likely to dominate Puducherry Assembly session

PUDUCHERRY: As the Puducherry Assembly is set to “re-assemble” on Monday, the Treasury Benches are keeping their fingers crossed for an incident-free session.

But there are indications that the session, primarily meant for introducing the Puducherry Value Added Tax Bill, 2007, will not be smooth.

The opposition party, All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, is determined to raise, through calling attention motions, a host of issues such as law and order, reservation for the minorities, distribution of free clothes to people below the poverty line and vacancies in the government.

The Pattali Makkal Katchi and the Communist Party of India — both allies of the ruling Congress — have also been waiting for the opportunity to highlight “non-fulfilment” of some promises made by Chief Minister N. Rangasamy.

However, the October 27 seizure of 2,400 tonnes of rice at the Puducherry Railway Station, while it was being transported to Andhra Pradesh, is likely to dominate the proceedings, observers say.

Though the Chief Minister and his Cabinet colleagues have not spelt out the government’s stand on the issue, the case of rice seizure, with inter-State ramifications, has raised a political storm in the Union Territory, with the preliminary investigation indicating that the consignments were moved in lorries from some godowns located close to Puducherry.

The issue has taken a new turn with the three persons arrested having admitted on Saturday that the rice was “smuggled” from public distribution system outlets.

The food cell wing of the police has made it clear that two huge consignments were transported through Puducherry to Assam and Bangladesh during the last six months.

Immediately after the detention of 40 rice-laden goods wagons, leaders, including AIADMK’s Puducherry unit secretary A. Anbalagan, PMK secretary M. Ramadass and All-India Congress Committee general secretary V. Narayanasamy have visited the railway station separately and made enquiries about the consignments.

All of them have demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation in view of the alleged involvement of agencies of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Puducherry.

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