Speaker’s action opportunistic: Stalin

After being removed from the House, Stalin along with his party legislators walked straight to Rajaji Salai and blocked the traffic to make their case on the alleged horse-trading of MLAs. 

As Speaker P Dhanapal refused to reconsider his ruling on eviction of the DMK members, legislators of the Congress and IUML staged a walkout in protest to join the alliance leader DMK in the road blockade. Around noon, the DMK legislators were  lodged in marriage halls by the police. All of them were released later. 

Stalin termed the Speaker’s decision to disallow the discussion of the horse-trading of the MLAs issue as ‘opportunistic’. “There are enough precedents of the Assembly discussing issues which were in courts,” he said besides listing out Cauvery, Mullaiperiyar and NEET, as having been debated by the Assembly, to substantiate his claim.

“We seek the dismissal of this government. We wanted to demand a CBI enquiry into the incident. I had plans to raise the issue after the ‘Question Hour’. But I was not allowed to speak on this issue. We tried our best till the last moment, but they did not heed our demand, and chose to evict us. It is highly condemnable. Democracy has been buried”, Stalin said. As for attending the Assembly session, Stalin clarified that they would participate in the rest of the Assembly session and assured that he would raise the issue again on Thursday.

Environment minister K C Karuppannan in the Assembly on Wednesday announced that competition on National Green Corps would be conducted for students and the winners would be taken to eco-tourist spots in each district.  

“Students, who are interested in eco club, would be eligible for oneday eco-tour,” he said. A total of Rs 64 lakh would be allotted for 32 districts for this purpose, he added.  “Each school will get Rs 15,000 for planting saplings and their maintenance,” the minister said and added that a sum of Rs 144 lakh would be spent for this programme. 

Karuppannan also announced that a new building for TNPCB would come up in Ooty and Tirupur (West) at a cost of Rs 4 crore.  Besides this, a new regional office would be established at Rs 1 crore in Tirunelveli. 

A total of Rs 25 lakh would be provided to TNPCB engineers and scientific officers for skill training programme. Meanwhile, the minister for forests Dindigul C Srinivasan announced that 17 buildings had been constructed at Rs 3.2 crore during 2016-17. 

“We will also extend the use of drones in Coimbatore, Tiruchy, Madurai and Tirunelveli forests,” he said and added that awareness was being created to stop man-animal conflicts in Coimbatore. “RAF has been formed to rescue animals straying out of forests,” the minister said.