It’s pandemonium again

(June 30, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) It’s pandemonium again to the fore in the Assembly today, as members of the Congress played along with their alliance partner, the ruling DMK, while the CPI, the CPI(M), the PMK and the MDMK ‘fought for the rights’ of the main opposition party AIADMK.

As soon as the question hour came to an end, AIADMK legislators (except Mylapore MLA S Ve Shekher) raised slogans for passage of a resolution on the Sri Lankan Tamils issue.

They demanded that the House adopt a resolution urging India to file a case against Sri Lanka in the International Court of Justice in view of allegations that many Tamils were killed during the military offensive against the LTTE.

As the Speaker rejected their demand and wanted to proceed with the listed business, AIADMK members stood up and raised slogans.

At this point, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi intervened and said raising slogans inside the House was ‘uncultured’, and requested the Speaker to evict them. Following this, the Speaker ordered the eviction of the MLAs belonging to the main opposition party of the State.

Within minutes, the MLAs of the MDMK, a ‘trusted ally’ of the AIADMK walked out of the House. Condemning the act of the AIADMK legislators, Congress floor leader D Sudarsanam said the business advisory committee should meet under the chairmanship of the Speaker to find a solution to the ruckus created on a daily basis by the members of the main opposition party.

‘This is a sacred place. 234 members elected by 6.5 crore people are working here for the welfare of the State. It is unacceptable that some are creating trouble daily here,’ he said.

Members of the CPI (Sivapuuniyam) and CPI(M) (Balabarathi) objected to this and said it was the right of a political party to raise an issue and to walkout of the Assembly.

State Minister K Ponmudy and Congress MLA Peter Alphonse, while objecting to the remarks made by Communist legislators, said that it was the Speaker who had to decide on the topics to be discussed in the Assembly.

Echoing their stand, Finance Minister K Anbazhagan said the Speaker had got every right on making decisions over Assembly proceedings. To this, PMK MLA G K Mani expressed his unhappiness that ‘opposition parties were not being given due representation in the Assembly’.
As the Speaker objected to this, the PMK members walked out of the House.

However, Velmurugan, a legislator of the party, came back to the House within minutes to speak on a call attention motion, evicting laughter among the members of the DMK and Congress.

Special permission

Even as AIADMK legislators were evicted en masse from the Assembly today, S Ve Shekher, the Mylapore MLA from the AIADMK, who is apparently not in the good books of his party leadership, was given special permission by the Speaker to speak on a special call attention motion.

Following this, the dramatist turned politico spoke on certain issues and also requested Chief Minister Karunanidhi to help an ailing karateka.

-Sri Lanka Guardian