Chennai: A major controversy broke out on Wednesday after Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami tabled a bill in the Assembly that paves way for almost doubling the salary of MLAs, evoking Opposition from DMK, which questioned the “timing” citing the ongoing strike by transport employees.
Activists and political analysts were unanimous in saying that the “timing of tabling the Bill” was “quite bad” since it has been introduced in the midst of a strike by transport employees. The bill also brought the DMK and independent MLA TTV Dhinakaran who also joined ranks with the principal Opposition party in opposing the Bill.
The Tamil Nadu Payment of Salaries (Amendment) Act, 1951 proposes to increase the salary from Rs 55,000 to 1.05 lakh a month costing an additional Rs 25.32 crore per year to the exchequer. Once passed, the bill will come into effect retrospectively from July 2017.
When Palaniswami introduced the Bill in the Assembly, DMK member Sakkarapani opposed the timing and connected it with the transport strike.
Speaking to reporters outside the Assembly,
Opposition Leader M K Stalin said the government should have avoided tabling the Bill during the session as it has admitted on the floor of the House that it has no money to pay the striking transport employees.
“What is the need to hike the salary now? People will laugh at this hike when transport workers are on strike for a salary hike. Our MLA Sakkarapani opposed the Bill at the introduction stage itself and the DMK will oppose the Bill,” he said.
AIADMK rebel and independent MLA Dhinakaran also spoke on similar lines saying he would oppose the Bill once it comes for passage.
“Salary hike for the MLAs is needless when the government has no money to pay transport workers. I would oppose the amendment tabled in the assembly,” he said.
“Tamil Nadu MLAs' pay is much lower than that of MLAs in many other states. So hiking their pay is fine. Issue is the timing. When transport workers are demanding their arrears, some from 2013, why introduce this pay hike bill? Could it not have waited 1 month for Budget session of Assembly?” political commentator Sumanth C. Raman wrote on his Twitter page.
