The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly witnessed uproarious scenes on Friday, triggered by a member of the opposition mentioning former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa by her name on the floor of the House.
DMK MLA J. Anbazhagan, while speaking on the motion thanking the Governor for his speech, said, “ Maraindha mudalvar Jayalalithaa (Late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa),” which led to an uproar among the ruling party benches.
The treasury bench MLAs began protesting against the usage of Jayalalithaa’s name by the DMK member, triggering a war of words between the ruling party and the treasury benches, with members of both parties rushing towards the front benches.
When the Leader of the Opposition, M.K. Stalin, rose to speak, a few AIADMK members kept shouting with one legislator from the back benches running towards the front rows, pointing his finger at Mr. Stalin. This led to a further escalation of the melee.
“There is a problem now because my MLA said Jayalalithaa’s name. There are many former Chief Ministers to whom members of this Assembly refer by name. There is nothing wrong in saying their names. You could not, maybe, call the current Chief Minister by name,” Mr. Stalin said as the ruckus subsided.
Speaker P. Dhanapal asked members to ensure that they spoke without mentioning anyone’s name in a negative manner.
Following this, when Mr. Anbazhagan resumed his speech, he said, “Since the ruling party members are feeling sensitive about this, I will change my statement to “ Maraindha munnal ammaiyar .”
During past Assembly sessions as well, AIADMK members had taken issue with their DMK counterparts referring to Jayalalithaa by name.
