Chennai: Taking exception to Leader of Opposition and DMK treasurer M. K. Stalin’s two day ultimatum to the Speaker to allot an accessible seat to party chief M. Karunanidhi in the assembly, Leader of the House and Finance minister O. Panneerselvam on Friday alleged that Stalin was trying to blame the Speaker to hide the rift between him and his father and how he snatched the Opposition leader post from Karunanidhi.
“There were media reports of continuing differences of opinion between DMK chief Karunanidhi and Mr Stalin. Even two days ago, media reported that Mr Karunanidhi had boycotted the DMK MLAs meeting too. DMK members have posted in facebook comparing Mr Karunanidhi with Aurangazeb for which supporters of Mr Stalin and Mr Karunanidhi attacking each other in the social media. To hide the rift happened within their family, Mr Stalin is making false charges against the Speaker,” Mr Panneerselvam said in a three page statement responding to Mr Stalin.
Senior minister also said that Stalin who had written a letter to Speaker on May 25 with regard to the seating arrangement for DMK members in the Assembly but did not mention the name of Mr Karunanidhi at all. On the demand for allowing three DMK members to speak on Governor’s address, he said that the decision to allow only two DMK member to speak was taken considering their last year accusation that they were not allotted adequate time to speak in the Assembly.
Mr Stalin had told reporters that he had made a request to Speaker P. Dhanapal to provide an accessible seat to Mr Karunanidhi and allow three of his party members to speak on the Governor’s address daily. “If the Speaker did not act on our request within two days, we will decide on our future action,” he warned.
Mr Panneerselvam said Tamil Nadu people had witnessed several such empty rhetoric made before.
