PUDUCHERRY: All members of the opposition parties comprising Congress, AIADMK and DMK MLAs were evicted from the Puducherry Assembly on Wednesday. Leader of opposition V Vaithilingam was carried out after he and the other MLAs staged a dharna in the well of the house and raised slogans objecting to the address by the lieutenant governor Iqbal Singh.As soon as the lieutenant governor began his customary address on the opening day of the first session of the current year, the entire opposition got up on their feet and raised slogans against the lieutenant governor alleging failure of the government on various fronts, including ‘discrimination’ in distribution of cyclone relief, failure to reinstate retrenched government employees, non-disbursement of regional allocation to the outlying regions, non-disbursement of financial assistance for CENTAC sponsored students, and housing subsidy to BPL people.The AIADMK member led by floor leader A Anbazhagan went into the well of the house and began the dharna after raising slogans. They were followed by nine MLAs of Congress and DMK led by Vaithilingam, with placards in their hands. Seven Congress MLAs including E Valsaraj, C Jayakumar, K Lakshminarayanan, Malladi Krishna Rao and PNR Thirumurugan, and two DMK MLAs AMH Nazeem and Nantha T Saravanan, also walked into the well and joined the dharna. Through placards they questioned the government on when retrenched employees would be reinstated, what happened to implementation of schemes started in the name of Kamaraj, and when the ‘closed’ textile mills be reopened. They also demanded a CBI probe into the Yanam violence.The protest continued for 20 minutes, after which the Speaker V Sabapathy finally ordered the watch and ward to evict the protesting members from house. As the members resisted, the Leader of Opposition was carried out and the other members followed him.Later Vaithilingam said that even after making several representations to the lieutenant governor on failure of the government on various fronts, the situation has remained the same.Similarly in a statement Anbazhagan said that when the government had not fulfilled the statements made in the previous year’s address, what was the necessity for another address for the next fiscal. Critisising the government for passing the vote on accounts, he added that it was shameful that the government was unable to present the budget for the next fiscal. Earlier the Congress and DMK members attempted to block the entry of Lieutenant governor to house in the lobby of the assembly, which was prevented by the watch and ward.
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