Unruly scenes, disruptions, en masse eviction on Day 2

In a marathon reply to a special calling attention motion moved by the opposition party members in the Assembly on Friday, the Minister said the charges levelled by the Opposition parties, especially the DMK and its chief M. Karunanidhi, were baseless.

The agreements with the four private firms from whom the Government was purchasing power to offset the demand-supply gap, were signed by the previous DMK regime.

Denying the Opposition’s charge that the ruling AIA DMK had purchased power at higher rates from four private firms, he said that the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) purchased power from the private firms in a transparent manner as per the guidelines framed by the Central Government and the Tamil Nadu Energy Regulatory Commission (TNERC).

There was no scope for any irregularities in the AIADMK regime, which was functioning under the guidance of former Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa.

The DMK members took exception to Mr Viswanathan terming the previous DMK regime as ‘minority DMK government’ and DMK Floor Leader M. K. Stalin made a remark, which evoked spontaneous protests from the Treasury Benches. His remark was later expunged.

Intervening, CM O. Panneerselvam remarked, “Ask the sleeping Arcot Veerasamy (former DMK electricity minister) if you don’t know (the truth).”

Enraged DMK members, including floor leader M. K. Stalin and Deputy Leader Duraimurugan, laid siege to the Speaker’s podium for the third time when Mr Viswanathan accused Mr. Karunanidhi of not seeming ‘to know the rules’ on the power purchase agreement and indulged in heated arguments.

As the situation threatened to go out of control, Speaker P. Dhanapal ordered the Assembly Marshalls to evict the DMK members.