Chennai: The sprawling and newly built Kalaivanar Arangam, inaugurated by late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, might be the possible venue for the next session of the Tamilnadu Assembly, in view of the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic and to ensure social distancing norms among legislators.
Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal, along with Deputy Speaker Pollachi V Jayaraman and Assembly Secretary K Srinivasan inspected the Kalaivanar Arangam, located at Wallajah Road and held discussions on holding the next session of the Legislative Assembly.
Later, talking to reporters, Dhanapal no decision has been taken so far in holding the next Assembly session at Kalaivanar Arangam.
Since the seating arrangement in the present Assembly hall at Fort St Geoerge provides little scope for enusing physical distancing, a spacious venue was being explored and Kalaivanar Arangam has been actively considered for holding the session.
The House was adjourned sine die on 24 March and the next session has to be convened by 24 September, which is barely a month away.
Dhanapal inspected the multipurpose hall on the third floor of Kalaivanar Arangam, which has enough space to accommodate 234 legislators (2 vacant) and the seating arrangements could be made in compliance with the physical distancing norms.
Though it has become certain that the next session could not be held in the Assembly Hall due to space constraints caused by the social distancing norms, Kalaivanar Arangam has emerged as the most likely choice since it was very closer to the MLAs’ quarters.
Another advantage was that Kalaivanar Arangam has ample parking facilities and was also located in close proximity to the Assembly Secretariat.
For a brief period during the 2006-2011 DMK regime, the Assembly session was held at the present-day Omandurar Government Multi Super-Specialty Hospital, which was constructed as an Assembly-cum-Secretariat complex, but was later converted into hospital.
However, before the current venue–Fort St George–Assembly sessions were held in Rajaji Hall.
Reports said that the first Assembly session was held in May 1952 at Rajaji Hall, which remained the venue till December 1956, before it was shifted to Fort St George.