Chennai: The three-day brief session of the Tamilnadu Assembly beginning here today is expected to be stormy, with the Opposition DMK all set to corner the ruling AIADMK on a host of issues, including the death of four NEET aspirants in the State in the last few days.
The session is being held at the sprawling and spacious Kalaivanar Arangam to ensure physical distancing norms among the MLAs in view of the Covid-19 pandemic as there was space crunch in the present Assembly
hall at Fort St George.
Ahead of the session, all the MLAs, including Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, Speaker P Dhanapal, Assembly officials, officers and journalists were subjected to corona tests and returned negative, except for two officials.
Dhanapal said said condolence resolutions would be adopted mourning the deaths of former President Pranab Mukherjee, DMK MLA J Anbazhagan, Congress MP H Vasanthakumar and those who died of coronavirus on the first day.
The House would also condole the deaths of 21 former legislators who had died since the previous Assembly session after which the House would be adjourned for the day.
The session would begin with Question Hour on the next two days and the first supplementary budget would be tabled in the House on 16 September.
The principal opposition DMK was set to raise a host of issues including, demanding a resolution seeking to scrap the NEET exams in the state in the wake of four students ending their lives in the last five days, including three on Saturday alone, due to fear over clearing the NEET exams, the National Education Policy-2020 and the Centre’s move to impose three-language policy in the State, corona situation, among others.
The DMK would also raise the alleged irregularities in the PM-Kisan scheme, which came to light in several districts, apart from the alleged failure of the government in handling the corona pandemic and the fresh privilege notices issued to DMK president and Opposition Leader M K Stalin and 17 of his party MLAs for displaying banned gutkha products in the House in July 2017.
Though Stalin and other MLAs had filed writ pleas in the Madras High Court, the issue was expected to generate more heat in the House, apart from the coronavirus pandemic.
Stalin had been consistently alleging that there were irregularities in procuring items for treating corona patients and also accused the government of failing on all fronts in dealing with the pandemic.
Meanwhile, Kalaivanar Arangam on the Wallajah Road came under tight security in view of the Assembly session with the deployment of a large number of police personnel.