Men in Khaki take over all routes leading to Secretariat

All entrances leading to Assembly complex were filled with khaki-clad men not less than three dozen manning each entrance from 8 am till the Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa presented the demand for grants for the Home department, replied to empty benches in the Opposition and headed back to her Poes Garden residence around 1 pm. 

So tight was the security cordon that every journalist (two per media house) was made to register before walking through door-frame metal detectors at the public entrance. 

Uncharacteristically near-empty press room, absence of outdoor broadcasting vans and skeletal-strength TV and print crew was glaring in the Secretariat, outside which cops created separate lanes on the arterial Kamarajar Salai for MLAs and minister/staff to enter the Secretariat and people to proceed towards Parry’s Corner. 

Inside the Assembly complex, the police had Gate No 4 (regular entry point for MLAs and journalists till Friday) closed and restricted media entry to Gate No 6, apparently, eliminating the interface between scribes and opposition MLAs outside the Assembly. 

Expectedly, the eight DMK MLAs who turned up with their mouths gagged with a black cloth in protest of the suspension order against their 79 party colleagues, neither tested the cops nor the Assembly marshals this morning as they vainly appealed to the Chair to revoke the suspension for a brief moment and walked out moments before the CM presented her demand for grants. 

Ally Congress and the lone IUML MLA also staged a walkout and left the entire Opposition benches empty. After a brief absence, the good old tiresome wait at traffic signal for VIP movement returned to haunt commuters on Kamarajar Salai in the afternoon, when cops stopped vehicular movement for the CM’s motorcade.