Just before the winter session of TN assembly was due to start, O Panneerselvam, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu on Sunday openly challenged the opposition leader M Karunanidhi to attend the session. Not to be outdone, the DMK chief took up that challenge on Thursday.
Before entering the assembly on Thurdsay, a wheelchair-bound Karunanidhi met the media with the quip that he attended despite the fact that the assembly is not ‘disable-friendly’. After signing the register, he left the assembly.
This is the first assembly session after J Jayalalithaa was dethroned from the Chief Minister’s seat after the Karnataka special court convicted her in a disproportionate asset case in September.
“Usually in Rajya Sabha and other houses, there would be separate arrangements for members who are physically disabled. He dared me to attend the session despite the fact that there is no arrangement has been made to ensure my entry in wheelchair,” Karunianidhi said. He said he is pained as he could not fulfill his duties as an opposition leader at the assembly and the government has ignored the fact that he is a politician with more than 50 years long experience.
There were criticism and repeated demands from opposition to convene the assembly immediately, which was supposed to be started in October itself. Finally, the notification for the special session was issued on Monday, which followed a war of statements between DMK chief M Karunanidhi and Panneerselvam. For almost a month, Panneerselvam has been denying the need for any urgency in convening the assembly session.
Responding to the demand of Karunanidhi for the announcement of assembly session, Pannerselvam said on Sunday that he has no right to raise such a demand as he hardly attended the proceedings in the past. The immediate reply from Karunanidhi was that he will be attending the session if he is given a proper seating arrangement considering his bad health.
The seat of the Chief Minister is next to the entrance in Tamil Nadu assembly while the entry to the middle row where the opposition is given the seats is not disable-friendly. During the previous DMK regime, walking a couple of feet to the CM’s seat was possible for Karunannidhi. With his worsened health now, someone has to carry him all the way to the middle row.
Even if there is a truth in Karunanidhi’s compalint, it is a fact that opposition leaders in Tamil Nadu always choose to not attend the assembly under one pretext or other. Former judge of Madras high court, Justice K Chandru, said claiming for convening the house is more of a polemics than to really transact legislative business. “The long list of such absentees include Karunanidhi, Jayalalithaa and very recently Vijayakanth. However they never failed to go to the verandahs of the house to sign the attendance so as to keep their membership alive. Perhaps the reason may be that most of them have continued…
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