Chennai: The Assembly witnessed a ruckus for more than one and half hours as the DMK members created noisy scenes, shouting slogans and rushing to the Speaker’s podium demanding that Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa’s remarks on DMK to be expunged.
They also tore the copies of the Bill for indirect elections to the posts of municipal and town panchayat chairmen and threw them near the Speaker’s podium, before staging a walkout from the House.
It started during the speech of Stalin, who wanted to know about the implementation of an announcement by Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa that houses for police would be built at the headquarters of all the districts.
The CM who intervened said the DMK had no locus standi to speak on houses for policemen since the DMK government in 1989 dissolved the Police Housing Corporation meant to provide housing facilities for policemen. She said it was formed by former Chief Minister MGR and was dissolved by the DMK regime. But, it was later revived by her government in 1991 and had built thousands of houses to policemen, she added.
Her remarks on the DMK led to strong protests from the opposition MLAs. Leader of Opposition M.K. Stalin made a reply to the Chief Minister and it was expunged by Speaker P. Dhanapal.
The DMK opposed the removal of Stalin’s remarks and demanded that the Chief Minister’s remarks should also be expunged. At this juncture, the government introduced a resolution against Siruvani dam project by Kerala and the DMK members returned to their seats and sat silently.
However, after the resolution was passed, the DMK members took up the issue again, shouting slogans and standing near the Speaker’s podium. However, finance minister O. Panneerselvam gave the reply to the discussion on demand for grants to Public Works department.
The ruckus continued for more than 90 minutes, but Panneerselvam completed his speech. During his speech, Jayalalithaa left the House, but the noisy scenes continued.
When the Bill for indirect election of chiefs to municipalities and town panchayats was introduced at this juncture, the DMK opposed the Bill and demanded voting on it, but the Bill was passed on voice vote.
