Chennai: The DMK led by its working president M K Stalin on Wednesday triggered a furore in the State Assembly when they showed sachets of banned tobacco products.
Speaker P. Dhanapal referred action of DMK members to the Committee of Privileges. He said the DMK MLAs’ behaviour amounted to a “breach of privilege”. During a debate on the concluding day of the ongoing session, Stalin tried to raise the availability of banned substances such as gutka in the state.
Soon many of his colleagues were flaunting what appeared to be gutka sachets and the treasury benches strongly objected to it.
Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami questioned how the DMK members had access to ‘banned products’ and said bringing them to the House was a ‘crime’.
Finance Minister D. Jayakumar said it was illegal for the DMK to bring the banned products to the Assembly and said its action was being recorded.. The Speaker promised action against the DMK.
“I will take action for bringing in banned products to the Assembly,” he said before referring the matter to the privileges committee, while the DMK staged a walkout. Palaniswami said if the DMK members had actually found such banned substances, they should have approached the police for legal action but had not done so.
