All 21 DMK legislators, to whom the Chairman of the Assembly Privileges Committee had issued notices for bringing gutkha sachets into the House in August, on Tuesday, sought 15 days’ time to submit their replies over the issue. The DMK legislators led by their leader M.K. Stalin had taken the tobacco products to the Assembly to highlight that the banned items were still being sold illegally in Chennai.
A plea on behalf of all the DMK legislators to whom notices were issued was submitted to the Assembly Secretary in the Secretariat here. According to the notices, the DMK MLAs were to submit their replies latest by Tuesday this week.
“We have submitted a plea to the Assembly Secretary seeking another 15 days to respond to the notices so that we can get legal advice,” said Harbour MLA P.K. Sekar Babu (one of the MLAs to whom the notice has been issued) after submitting the plea.
Even as he claimed that the ruling AIADMK government has lost majority in the House and was a “minority government”, Mr. Babu said the ruling government was not only boycotted by the general public but also by its own MLAs.
“Nineteen of its MLAs have given their letters to the Governor withdrawing support to Chief Minister Edapaddi K. Palaniswami. This government cannot even get the support of its own MLAs and has to be considered a minority government,” he said.
DMK legislators K.S. Ravichandran (Egmore), N. Karthik (Singanallur), P. Sivakumar alias Thayagam Kavi (Thiru.Vi.Ka. Nagar), S. Ambethkumar (Vandavasi) and S. Sudharsanam (Madhavaram) accompanied Mr. Babu.
Last month, the Deputy Assembly Speaker Pollachi V. Jayaraman, who is also the Chairman of the Assembly’s Privileges Committee had issued notices to 21 DMK MLAs.