TN Assembly session to commence on Jan 6

The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly session would commence on January six, 2020 with the customary New Year address to the House by Governor Banwarilal Purohit.

This would be the third address to the House by Mr Purohit after he took over as the Governor in October 2017.

Assembly Secretary K Srinivasan, in a release on Tuesday, said ''in pursuance of clause (1) of Article 174 of the Constitution, the Governor has summoned the Legislative Assembly to meet at 10:00 hrs on January six, 2020 in the Assembly Chamber''.

''In pursuance of clause (1) of Article 176 of the Constitution, the Governor will address the State Legislative Assembly on that day'', he added.

In his address, the Governor is expected to outline some of the welfare measures of the AIADMK government headed by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami.

After the Governor's address, the Business Advisory Committee would meet at Speaker P Dhanapal's Chamber to decide on the duration of the session.

The session was likely to last one week.

The session was expected to generate more heat as the Opposition led by the DMK would be raising a host of issues, including the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which has triggered widespread protests across the State.

The DMK and its alliance parties along with several Muslim outfits, which had staged a massive rally condemning the CAA and demanded that it should be repealed, was expected to target the ruling AIADMK for supporting it in Rajya Sabha.

The DMK blamed the AIADMK for the violence and protests across the country and said had the AIADMK and PMK voted against the Bill in the Rajya Sabha, it would not have become an Act.

The Opposition was also expected to raise the issue regarding the delay in the release of seven life convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case by the Governor even after the State Cabinet's resolution was forwarded to the Raj Bhavan nearly 15 months back.

The DMK and other parties had been expressing their displeasure over the prolonged delay by the Raj Bhavan in acting on the State Cabinet resolution and has been urging the State government to exert pressure on Raj Bhavan for their release.

The State Cabinet had on September nine last year, adopted a resolution recommending to the Governor to release all the seven convicts under Article 161 of the Constitution.

The decision, recommending to the Governor to release all the seven convicts--Sriharan alias Murugan, Santhan, Perarivalan alias Arivu, Nalini, Robert Pyas, Ravichandran and Jayakumar, who were languishing in jail for the last 27 years--was taken in line with the September six Supreme Court order.

Based on the Apex Court order, which had asked the Governor to consider the mercy plea of Perarivalan for premature release, the Cabinet had recommended to the Governor to release all the convicts under Article 161 of the Constitution.