CHENNAI: Remarks made by DMK member ‘Thayagam’ Kavi triggered a war of words between ministers and the Opposition Benches in the Assembly on Wednesday. Delivering his maiden speech in the House, the DMK MLA said the debt burden of the State government had swelled to `3,14,366 crore as per the information furnished in the Budget.
Hailing party’s president M Karunanidhi for presenting budgets fraught with developmental schemes, he said the budgets of the current government were void of developmental projects. Leader of the House and School Education Minister KA Sengottaiyan intervened to advise him to realise he was talking in the Assembly and not at a public meeting. Countering Kavi’s charges, Finance Minister D Jayakumar described the budgets presented during the earlier DMK regimes as the worst and said that the then DMK government failed to ensure that Central funds and share from taxes due for the state reached the state’s exchequer.
Ruckus prevailed in the House as DMK members took to their feet. Kavi’s choice of a word to blunt the attack of the minister evoked sharp reaction from the Treasury Benches. The House plunged into pandemonium again with the Finance Minister recalling the statement of M Karunanidhi, then Chief Minister, made in the House over a stir by milk producers.