At loggerheads with Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, Lieutenant Governor (L-G) Kiran Bedi today said she was ready to work with the former in the interest of the Union Territory.
Speaking to reporters here, she also refuted allegations by the ruling Congress in Puducherry that files were pending with her.
The L-G said files that were claimed to be with her were actually not with her and she had "evidence" to back it.
Responding to a query on Narayanasamy's statement that he was ready to meet the L-G and hold discussions to solve people's problems, she said "he is welcome."
Bedi said she was "100 per cent ready" to work with him.
"I am here to work together and we did work together. The question is only of intention. What is my intention. Is my intention dishonest, (for) any vested interests. None.
"My intention is to make Puducherry honest, clean, sensitive to people's grievances, well administered... To be collaborated. This is my intention. If this is the same intention, then there is no conflict," she said.
The L-G said she was not in the Union Territory to "cater vested interests" and that "the poorer the person the more I am for them."
Responding to the Congress' allegations of files "pending" in her office, she asked such files to be named and said anybody can even file an RTI in this regard.
"It is so easy to say so many files are pending. Tell me which file, make it open. My office works very expeditiously, very thoroughly. Why, because that is my responsibility.
"I have a very good team which works very fast and thoroughly. If an allegation is made anytime, please tell me which file. Examination of a file is not delaying of the file," Bedi said.
Bedi said she was doing her duty properly and was being questioned for that.
"I am only doing my duty which is laid down under the law. Instead of saying thank you for following the law, you are questioning why you are doing your duty properly. I have never seen a situation like this," she said.
Bedi also said she would not be a mere "endorser" and a "rubber stamp."
On the nomination of three persons by the Centre and their induction into the assembly, the L-G asked why Narayanasamy did not make any recommendations for nominating MLAs and asserted that the Centre only exercised its powers.
"Did the chief minister for a whole year make any recommendations ? He did not," she told reporters here at the airport.
Defending nomination of the three legislators, which intensified the spat between her and Narayanasamy, Bedi said she did not receive any names for nominating them as MLAs from the chief minister.
She said the "the central government exercised its power to nominate up to three MLAs."
BJP Puducherry unit's chief V Saminathan and its treasurer K G Shankar, and S Selvaganapathy, an educationist, were nominated to the Puducherry Assembly by the Centre last week.
They were later inducted as members of the House by Bedi.
Asked about the Congress's alleging that she exceeded her mandate, she shot back saying "they just have to read the law again, as a Lt. Governor, how I can go beyond the law, I follow the law, and I am bound by law.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
