AIADMK protests over suspension for raking up TASMAC issue

Chennai:Unruly scenes were witnessed in the State Assembly on Monday when some AIADMK members turned up holding aloft a placard emblazoned with the legend 'who is the martyr' in connection with the recent raids in TASMAC office, leading to the Speaker M Appavu first suspending 13 MLAs for the rest of the session and then revoking it for just the day at the behest of Chief Minister M K Stalin.

AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, holding a protest outside the Assembly Hall against the suspension of his party MLAs for also wearing badges to raise attention on the raids, told the media that they were not given permission to raise the issue over the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids at the TASMAC headquarters in Chennai.

He questioned the need for the State government to seek the shifting of the case regarding the four day raids, in which documents to prove irregularities to the tune of Rs 1000 crore were unearthed, to another High Court and said that it was a ploy to ensure that details of the corruption did not appear in the local media.

Unable to face the case in the High Court, the government had moved the Supreme Court to change it to another court, said Palaniswami, which was denied by State Law Minister S Regupathy who told that media that the government had only asked for the Supreme Court to hear all the cases related to the issue together.

The plea was for the Supreme Court to hear the case and not shift the case to another High Court, the Minister clarified. He said that earlier in the 2016-21 period when ED raids were held no assessment of the irregularities were revealed then itself but after BJP State President K Annamalai started mentioning Rs 1000 crore corruption, the ED picked up the figure and started repeating it.

The legend of the placard ‘who is the martyr’ also evoked a reply from the Chief Minister who told the House that the AIADMK supporters were the real martyrs because the present leaders of the party had pledged their souls with a view to escaping from the various legal webs they were caught in had gone and fallen at the feet of ‘we know who.’

Party workers and supporters who had been pained and ‘reduced to noodles’ seeing their leaders prostrating before others were the real martyrs, Stalin said, adding that another martyr was V K Sasikala, on whose legs Palaniswami fell to get the Chief Minister’s post.

After getting his thing done by prostrating before her, Palaniswami betrayed her and she who was cheated was the real martyr now, Stalin told the House.

State Law Minister S Regupathy, in a statement, said, ‘forget the martyr, who is the traitor,’ referring to the placard carried by AIADMK members inside the House. He said anyone in the State would say that Palaniswami was the biggest traitor in the State.

Former Chief Minister O Pannerselvam and former AIADMK leader T T V Dinakaran were the real martyrs as they were taken for a ride by Palaniswami, he said.