Chennai: Leader of Opposition M.K. Stalin on Wednesday led the party's first walk out from the Assembly alleging that Speaker P. Dhanapal was not allowing him to speak in the legislature.
When Stalin raised a particular point during his speech on the motion of thanks to Governor for his address, Leader of the House O. Panneerselvam said the incident was being probed by the Election Commission and so it should not be discussed in the Assembly.
The Speaker also accepted it and expunged Stalin's remarks on the issue and did not allow him to raise the point. Protesting the Speaker's decision, DMK members walked out of the House.
Commenting on the walk out, the Speaker said DMK members had walked out in a planned manner after Stalin had completed his speech.
The Leader of Opposition was given sufficient time to speak in the Assembly, but at the end of the day, they had walked out alleging that Stalin had not been allowed to speak.
Speaking outside the Assembly, Stalin said he raised the issue of seizure of '570 crores from a container at Tirupur during the Assembly election campaign.
His party walked out after he was not allowed to speak on the subject. He also said he had raised the issue at the end of his speech since he was aware that the ruling party would not allow him to speak on the subject.
He also said the ruling party was allowing even party MLA K. Pandiarajan to intervene during Stalin's speech. It was a stormy day right from the beginning with aggressive DMK members opposing every move of the ruling party, standing up and raising their voice and rushing to the Speaker's podium.
The DMK members objected to the intervention of ministers who rose up to reply to Stalin’s allegations. Whenever, the ministers interrupted Stalin’s speech, DMK members protested vociferously shouting at the ministers to sit down. Deputy Opposition leader K. Duraimurugan complained that Stalin was being interrupted deliberately.
However, Leader of the House O. Panneerselvam recalled that when AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa attended the Assembly alone on July 31 2006 when all her party members were suspended, she was interrupted during her speech many times by state ministers.
The Speaker also said Jayalalithaa was interrupted 65 times by DMK ministers during her speech. He said it was unfair for DMK to expect that no one should intervene during Stalin's speech.
After the Speaker's explanation, DMK members were asked to sit by their leaders. However, DMK members turned furious when AIADMK member K. Pandiarajan was permitted by Speaker to intervene during Stalin's speech.
Replying to protests and shouting by DMK members, the Speaker said it was his privilege to allow any member to speak and recalled that MLAs V. Sivapunniyam (CPI), Govindasamy (CPI-M) and Peter Alphonse (Congress) were allowed to intervene during Jayalalithaa's speech in 2006. However, the DMK members were not pacified by the Speaker's explanation.
