The Leader of the Opposition MK Stalin and all DMK legislators, who attended the Legislative Assembly session on Wednesday, were en masse evicted from the House following a commotion over a mocking remark made by an AIADMK legislator on Mr Stalin’s Nammaku Naame road show.
Following their eviction, Finance Minister and Leader of the House O. Panneerselvam moved a resolution seeking the suspension of all DMK legislators alleging that they were disrupting the proceedings. Accepting this, Speaker P. Dhanapal ordered the suspension of the DMK MLAs week.
Stalin told journalists outside the House that the eviction and suspension of the DMK MLAs was a planned action to prevent them from raising issues during the demand for debate for grants to the Home Department, which is being handled by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.
The DMK leader said his party had been playing a proactive role in the Assembly participating in the debates. “Though we have boycotted the Assembly proceedings following disagreements with the Speaker on a few occasions, we had shortly thereafter returned to the House to participate in the debates. We acted true to our conscience,” he said.
According to him, every day, ruling party legislators and Ministers were making comments deliberately to provoke the DMK MLAs into launching a protest. “We had objected to this and some times the ruling party members have been forced to take back their words,” he said.
(This news report first appeared in The Hindu online edition)