CHENNAI: Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami and the party’s whip in the state Assembly on Wednesday clashed with speaker M Appavu complaining that the speeches of Palaniswami had been ‘blacked out’ during the live telecast of the House proceedings. For this reason, Palaniswami led his party colleagues in a walkout.
Palaniswami said the House is functioning under the total control of the speaker but his speeches alone were cut during the live telecast, raising the question of whether the House is really under his control. Velumani said the speaker should find out who is blacking out the speeches of EPS when the session is on.
Responding, the speaker said there was no ulterior motive behind this. “Steps are being taken to telecast live all proceedings of the House, in a phased manner. Already, question hour is being telecast, and from Wednesday onwards, the issues taken up during the zero hour which are mentioned in the agenda for the day would also be telecast live. So, the ultimate aim is to telecast live the entire proceedings,” he added.
Later, talking to reporters outside the Assembly, Palaniswami said during the zero hour, he brought to the notice of the government about the sexual assault on a UKG girl. But the live telecast was stopped when he started speaking to telecast the reply of Chief Minister MK Stalin on the issue.
He said people could understand the entire proceedings of the House only when the leader of the opposition’s questions as well as the replies of the government are telecast fully. “How will people get the full information on a particular issue if the replies of the Chief Minister and ministers alone are telecast live, blacking out the opposition leader’s speech,” he asked.