AIADMK has been discussing the seat issue for many days. Due to this, the assembly even staged a walkout. In this situation, the DMK has now approved the seat change. What is its background? Did the DMK show seriousness to change the seat? Why this change?
The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Session 2024 has started on 12th. The first day session started with Governor’s speech. On the second day at ‘Zero Hour’, Opposition Leader Edappadi Palanichamy spoke pointing out that there has been a demand for several days to allocate a seat to RP Udayakumar, who has been appointed as the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.
Responding to this, Chief Minister Stalin said, “The Leader of the Opposition in the House is constantly demanding that a seat should be reserved for Udayakumar, who has been elected as the Vice President of the ADMK. It has been talked about several times about the Speaker having the right. However, he requested the Speaker to reconsider the demand made by the opposition parties.
Responding to this, Speaker Appavu said, “The President has a request to change the seat. It will be considered,” he said. In this case, the OPS has been relocated.
What is behind this sudden change of DMK? – After DMK took charge, there was a rift between the two leaders as ‘EPS-OBS’. At that time, O. Panneerselvam was removed from the list of Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Udayakumar was appointed. After that, AIADMK requested to change the seat several times.
In particular, the AIADMK has met the Speaker many times and discussed this as a personal request. Last 13th also. Before the session started, Velumani, Sengottaiyan and some AIADMK members informed the Speaker that ‘the Leader of the Opposition is going to raise an issue in no time’. The Speaker replied, ‘You can raise it liberally. But if you ask without telling what the problem is, how can you give approval?’ Velumani pointed out that “when your chief minister was the leader of the opposition, he asked the speaker several times without getting his approval.”
Then Ministers Chakrapani and AV Velu said, “When Dhanapal is the Speaker, we will say ‘We are raising the issue in no time’.” He would raise the issue without the Minister answering and asking what are you going to do. We’ll ask ‘We’re just registering’. To that, AIADMK said, “Everything is related to the old issue”. After that, when the question was raised in the House, the Chief Minister replied like this. So, DMK has already decided to shift their seat as planned.
When DMK did not make any attempt to change the seat, ‘DMK supports OPS. Therefore, the AIADMK accused the DMK B-Team of OPS. But now the AIADMK has withdrawn from the BJP alliance. But OPS is close to BJP. He is also planning to form an alliance in the Lok Sabha elections. So, considering this DMK has decided to change his seat. It is also reported that DMK has taken this decision to show that there is no priority for BJP members in this House.
Due to this, Udayakumar has been allocated a seat near the Leader of Opposition Edappadi Palaniswami. Former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam has been replaced. A seat is reserved in the second row.