CHENNAI: The mock Assembly session held by members of the main Opposition the AIADMK and MLAs belonging to MDMK, CPI and CPM on Monday under a shamiana at a side entrance of the State Assembly mocked at the Speaker R Avudaiappan even as the regular session was going on in the House.
The mock Assembly session reminded the ‘Open Air Assembly’ staged by the members of the DMK, Congress, PMK, CPI and CPM in front of the Fort St George on July 23, 2004, even as the actual session was going on in the House.
The mock session was to protest the drastic curtailment of the budget session.
Arcot N Veerasamy declared the mock Assembly open with the CPM’s senior member, J Hemachandran, as the Speaker and it went on for two hours. Durai Murugan mocked at the then Speaker K Kalimuthu and imitated him in a humorous way.
On Monday, the members of these four parties after staging walk out for the second time over the suspension of the nine AIADMK MLAs, sat at one of the side entrances of the State Assembly blocking the entire pathway and raised slogans against the Speaker for his ‘autocratic’ style of functioning.
After half-an-hour of slogan shouting, AIADMK Whip K A Sengottaiyan and CPM floor leader K Balabharathi suggested holding of a mock Assembly session and it was readily accepted. The initial offer to hold the office of the Speaker was given to CPI floor leader V Sivapunniyam who declined it. Later, former minister D Jayakumar was elected Speaker.
MDMK member Gnanadoss spoke about Niira Radia tapes while CPM member N Nanmaran spoke about the irregularities in the local body elections in Madurai. Acting like Avudaiappan, the ‘mock speaker’ Jayakumar expunged all their remarks. Similar action was taken by Jayakumar when C Ve Shanmugam and CPM member G Latha spoke about some issues stating that he would not allow anything that went against the DMK government. All these went on amid laughter and they were surrounded by media.
When Balabharathi started speaking about 2G scam, she used the word Vuuzhal (corruption) which was again expunged by Jayakumar.
As the show was going on, security was beefed up for some time and Joint Police Commissioner Seshasayee came there and asked the MLAs not to sit there. To this, Sengottaiyan said police force had no business to interfere in their protest.
The drama came to an end when actual House proceedings inside the Assembly were over at 1.10 p m.
