Speaker V. Vaithilingam has decided not to recognise the three BJP leaders nominated to the Legislative Assembly by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
The MHA had, in July, appointed local BJP V. Saminathan, party treasurer K. G Shankar and educationist S. Selva Ganapathy as nominated members of the Assembly.
Assembly sources told The Hindu that the Speaker had officially communicated to the members his inability to recognise them till the court disposed of the petition challenging their appointment.
The Parliamentary Secretary to Chief Minister, K. Lakshminarayanan, had approached the Speaker with a request not to recognise them till the court order.
Besides, Congress MLA V. Vizeaveny had questioned the appointment without giving due representation to members belonging to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities. The AIADMK and DMK members too had given representation to Speaker not to allow the members inside the Assembly, sources said.
The unilateral appointment of the members by the MHA had triggered a major controversy after Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi completed the formality of swearing-in of the nominated MLAs hours after the three members met the Speaker requesting him to administer the oath at the earliest.
After the swearing-in ceremony, Ms. Bedi had sent a file urging the Speaker to provide all facilities to the nominated members in the house, including rooms, identity card and seating arrangement in the Assembly.
The Speaker returned the file stating that the facilities could not be provided as he had not received any communication from the “competent” authority about the appointment. The competent authority, according to the Speaker’s Office, was the President. . The order issued by the MHA appointing the members did not carry the signature of the President, sources said.
The Speaker had also sought clarification from the MHA on personal details of the appointed members as the order issued by the Ministry did not provide the address of the MLAs.
“We are yet to get any clarification on the competent authority. The MHA has only clarified on the personal details of the members,” a source in the Assembly said.