Opposition M K Stalin , DMK MLAs evicted, suspended from TN Assembly

Opposition M K Stalin , DMK MLAs evicted, suspended from TN Assembly

FPJ BureauUpdated: Thursday, May 30, 2019, 01:16 PM IST
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Chennai : The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly witnessed high drama on Wednesday when Speaker P Dhanapal ordered the ‘watch and ward’ staff to evict the Leader of Opposition M K Stalin and all his DMK colleagues from the House and subsequently suspended them from the current session for a week.

The Speaker’s decision to evict the DMK MLAs came after they staged a vociferous protest over certain mocking remarks made by a ruling AIADMK legislator S Gunasekaran about the ‘Namakku Naame’ (‘We for ourselves’) road show conducted by Stalin ahead of the last Assembly elections.

The action led to sporadic protests by the DMK, whose cadres burnt the Speaker’s effigy at various places and the party declared that it would conduct a public meeting on August 22 in Chennai to condemn the “murder of democracy” inside the Assembly.

DMK president M Karunanidhi will address the meeting, which incidentally is being held the same day when Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa would reply to the demand on debate for grants to her Home Department. Earlier in the day, Stalin had alleged that the eviction and suspension of the DMK MLAs was planned by the ruling party to prevent the opposition from raising critical issues when the Home Department’s demand comes up for debate.

Incidentally, in the current Assembly this is the first time the Speaker has resorted to such an action to counter the numerically strong opposition benches. The number of the opposition MLAs has swelled to 98 (89 DMK, eight Congress and one IUML) in the 234-member House.

Ironically, the action came just a day after Stalin, in an unusual gesture, urged the Speaker not to misconstrue the DMK MLA’s protests in the Assembly as if they were acting against the authority of the Speaker or questioning his ruling. “Sometimes, when you are unable to arrive at a decision due to circumstances, our MLAs express their feelings.

They may possibly utter some unwarranted words. I am deeply pained by this, I feel ashamed and am waiting to apologise to you,” he had said.

What triggered Wednesday’s uproar was that the AIADMK MLA Gunasekaran mocked at Stalin’s state-wide road show saying despite this the DMK could not come to power. While DMK MLAs were protesting, Stalin, who was out of the House at that time, returned on hearing the commotion and then pacified the legislators saying that his road show had an impact on everyone including the ruling party. To buttress his contention, he made a reference to a ruling party leader taking note of his road show at a party forum. The DMK legislators then took their seats.

However, the Speaker expunged certain remarks of Stalin triggering protests again. Thereafter the Speaker ordered their eviction and Stalin was bodily lifted out of the House. Immediately, the Leader of the House and Finance Minister O Panneerselvam moved a resolution demanding that the DMK MLAs be suspended from the House for disrupting proceedings. Accepting the contention, the Speaker suspended them for a week.

Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who was at the Secretariat, did not attend the session.

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