Chennai: DMK MLA J. Anbazhagan was evicted on Tuesday from the Tamil Nadu Assembly for bringing disrepute to the House.
Deputy Speaker Pollachi V. Jayaraman, who conducted the proceedings since Speaker P. Dhanapal was admitted to a private hospital due to stress-related issues, ordered the eviction of Mr Anbazhagan, MLA from Triplicane-Chepauk in the city, after he intervened in the debate on the increasing incidents of fishermen being attacked by the Sri Lankan Navy. It began when fisheries and finance minister D. Jayakumar made some remarks attributed to DMK chief M. Karunanidhi while answering questions from MLAs. As Jayakumar referred to Karunanidhi who is a member of the House, DMK members got to their feet in protest.
Mr Anbazhagan rose to his feet and this infuriated the treasury benches with Chief Minister K. Palaniswami himself taking exception to it. Leader of the House and school education minister K. A. Sengottaiyan asked the chair to take action against Anbazhagan, saying his conduct was not keeping with the ethos of the House.
Accepting the suggestion, Jayaraman ordered the eviction of Anbazhagan, following which House marshals took him out, leading to a vociferous protest by DMK MLAs led by party’s deputy floor leader Durai Murugan who asked the chair to reconsider his order. When the chair refused to do this, Durai Murugan staged a walkout with his party members.
DMK walks out against deputy speaker’s action
The Assembly witnessed noisy scenes just at the end of the debate when DMK member R. Masilamani tried to raise the AIADMK’s proximity to the BJP and the DMK members walked out when deputy speaker V. Jayaraman refused permission to speak on subject.
Masilamani, who had defected to DMK from the MDMK, made some remarks at the end of his speech but they were expunged by the deputy speaker.
When the DMK members opposed the deputy speaker’s action saying that he was only speaking on the DMK’s policy, Electricity minister P. Thangamani intervened and pointed out that the DMK was in alliance with the BJP from 1999 to 2004.
When deputy opposition leader K. Duraimurugan tried to counter Thangamani, the deputy speaker refused permission for him to speak. The DMK members strongly objected to the speaker’s denial of permission and walked out the House.
