Tamil Nadu Assembly session to begin on January 9

Chennai: The State Assembly would meet at the Assembly Chamber in the Secretariat on January 9 and the session, being the first one in the New Year, would begin with the Governor’s Address.

A notification from Raj Bhavan said Governor R N Ravi, in exercise of the power conferred by clause (1) of Article 174 of the Constitution of India, ‘hereby summon the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly to meet at 10.00 A.M. on Monday, the 9th January, 2023.’

Assembly Speaker M Appavu told the media at his chambers that the duration of the session would be decided at the Business Advisory Committee meeting on the first day.

On the seating arrangement in the House for Deputy Leader of the Assembly O Panneerselvam, he said that no new request had been made by the AIADMK on their demand to change the seat and that he had already given the explanation for not changing it earlier.

Since the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition share the same sofa in the front row of the opposition benches, the split in the AIADMK led to the members of the Edappadi K Palaniswami faction demanding the change of seat for Panneerselvam as the party had removed him from the post.

But the Speaker had explained that the Assembly or the government would not interfere in the internal affairs of a party and that they had to resolve their differences among themselves.

On the allocation of a seat in the treasury benches for the recently inducted Minister, Udhayanidhi Stalin, he said he would be seated between Industries Minister Thangam Thenarasu and Law Minister S Raghupathy.

On the precautions to be taken in view of the new threat from a possible Coronavirus spread, the Speaker said that there was no mandatory test for the legislators attending the session and added that the Health Minister M Subramanian had already stressed on the need for wearing facemasks.

The Governor’s address would be telecast live and on the rest of the days, the question answer session alone would be telecast live, he said.