Other parties given more time in House: Speaker Appavu

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker M Appavu on Tuesday said that MLAs of ‘other’ parties were given more time to speak in the House in comparison with the ruling party MLAs during the session ending this evening.

Wrapping up the 22-day long session with a long speech in the House, Appavu said that as many as 158 MLAs spoke for 48 hours and 26 minutes during the 22 days. Of the 48.26 hours, about 74 members of other parties spoke for 25 hours and 39 minutes, while the 84 ruling party (DMK) MLAs spoke for only 22 hours and 47 minutes. “Other parties were allotted an additional two hours and 52 minutes to speak in the House, ” the Speaker said.

About 121 MLAs have raised 27,713 questions from January 5, 2022 (date of Governor’s address) to May 10, 2022. DMK MLA P Sivakumar aka Thayagam Kavi had raised the maximum number of questions (8,446), followed by PMK legislature party leader G K Mani and AMV Prabhakar Raj of DMK who had raised 8,312 and 5,425 questions, respectively.

On the issue of airing the entire Assembly proceedings live, Appavu said that though question hour was only aired live, a situation would be definitely created in the future for airing the entire Assembly proceedings live. The Assembly session, which was held earlier in Kalaivanar Arangam owing to Covid threat, was held at the Assembly Hall in Fort St George since February 8, 2022.