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Protest over suspension: FIR against Stalin, DMK MLAs
Chennai: Police on Sunday filed cases against Leader of the Opposition MK Stalin and fellow Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam legislators for holding protests inside and
Chennai: Police on Sunday filed cases against Leader of the Opposition MK Stalin and fellow Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam legislators for holding protests inside and outside the state assembly last week.
The FIR was registered against 60 MLAs even as the DMK announced plans for a similar protest outside the assembly house on Monday.
It was against congregating inside the assembly premises without permission that the police registered a case against the 63-year-old Stalin and his party MLAs. The DMK legislators were protesting against the August 17 decision of assembly speaker S Dhanapal for suspending them from the House for a week.
The legislators have challenged the suspension in the Madras High Court. The 234-member Assembly has DMK as the main Opposition with 89 MLAs, while the ruling AIADMK has 133 legislators.
Last Wednesday, the speaker suspended 89 legislators of the main opposition for unruly behavior inside the assembly. The suspension was ordered after Leader of the House O Panneerselvam moved a resolution, which the speaker accepted.
The Opposition legislators were protesting certain “derisive comments” AIADMK member M Gunasekaran made against Stalin and his mass-contact programme ‘Nammakku Naame’ the DMK leader undertook ahead the elections.
Assembly marshals had, on Wednesday, carried Stalin out of the assembly and deposited him in front of a battery of media personnel.
The DMK leader described the speaker’s action as “arbitrary” and the marshals’ action as symptomatic of the “dictatorial style” of chief minister J Jayalalithaa.
The next day, Stalin led his party members in a protest at the state Assembly, alleging denial of entry into the premise.
On Friday, the DMK legislators conducted a mock assembly session to highlight the “autocratic” aspect of the current regime and “expose” how it treated the assembly. The session’s ‘Speaker’ Durai Murugan imitated Dhanapal putting down other MLAs in a high-handed manner.
