CHENNAI: The state Assembly witnessed heated and prolonged war of words for over 30 minutes between Chief Minister MK Stalin and leader of the Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami, especially over the Pollachi sexual assault case that happened during the previous AIADMK regime when EPS was the CM.
The fiery exchange of words also happened over the issue of the Union government auctioning the rights to mine tungsten in Madurai district. Interestingly, the heated debate happened a day after the ruling DMK and AIADMK came together on Thursday in passing the resolution demanding the Union government to withdraw the controversial draft regulation of the UGC.
The trigger was the accusation of Palaniswami, during his speech on the motion of thanks to Governor RN Ravi’s address that the government was trying to protect another accused in the recent sexual assault of a student in Anna University.
Strongly refuting the allegation and blaming EPS for attempting to gain political mileage despite knowing that the government took swift and proper action in the incident, he instead alleged that it was the AIADMK government that delayed the filing of FIR in the Pollachi assault case.
EPS, however, denied this and said the FIR was registered the next day after the victim filed a complaint on February 24, 2019. He further said while three accused were arrested the same day, another absconding accused was arrested within a week.
Stalin quickly retorted that the FIR was registered after a delay of 12 days and said he was ready to provide all documentary evidence to prove the same. EPS, however, remained firm on his statement, following which Stalin said he would be ready to accept any punishment if he failed to provide the evidence of delay and challenged EPS if he would do the same if his claims were proven incorrect.
On the tungsten mining issue, the leaders repeated the allegations both their parties have already making against each other. EPS appealed to the state government to withdraw cases filed against those who protested against the mining. CM assured the House the government would take an appropriate decision after careful consultation.