Chennai
Attempting to demonstrate her loyalty to her party leadership in the floor of the House, DMK MLA Geetha Jeevan said that a third of seats in local bodies were reserved to women only due to the concerted efforts of her leader M Karunanidhi during the 1996-2001 regime.
Quickly intervening, state fisheries minister D Jayakumar said that the state cabinet gave its nod for the legislation only in the AIADMK regime. A Local Administration Minister himself during the 2006-11 regime, Leader of Opposition M K Stalin intervened and said, “You might have approved, but we enforced it. DMK regime had conducted local body polls then and first enforced it.” “Panchayati Raj Act was actually introduced by late Rajiv Gandhi. You did not enforce it. You approved, but the legislation was enforced by the DMK regime,” Stalin added, only to be criticised by minister Jayakumar, who said, “We cooked. You ate.”
Unsurprisingly, Congress legislature party leader K R Ramasamy joined the debate and reminded both parties that it was indeed Rajiv Gandhi who had introduced the landmark legislation reserving a third of the local body seats to women and both parties could not deny that.
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