Tamil Nadu

AIADMK stages walkout over Hogenakkal issue

— Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

EXPLAINING THE REASON: AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa addressing the media shortly after walking out of the Assembly in Chennai on Tuesday.

CHENNAI: All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam members, led by their general secretary Jayalalithaa, staged a walkout from the Assembly on Tuesday over the Hogenakkal issue.

After a three-day-long recess, the House met at 9-30 a.m. and Speaker R. Avudaiappan recited a stanza from ‘Thirukkural.’ Immediately, Opposition Leader Ms. Jayalalithaa rose to say that an adjournment motion on the Hogenakkal issue should be taken up before Question Hour.

Mr. Avudaiappan told her and her colleagues to remain seated but they did not relent. The AIADMK members raised slogans, demanding the suspension of Question Hour.

The Speaker counselled them to maintain peace and called the Local Administration Minister to answer the question on digging a deep borewell and hand pump in two villages coming under the Arcot constituency.

Even as the AIADMK members refused to take their seats, the Speaker told them that for adjourning Question Hour, a motion had to be adopted by the House unanimously. However, the issue would be considered after the Hour. Not satisfied with his ruling, Ms. Jayalalithaa staged the walkout along with her party members. The AIADMK’s ally, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, joined the protest.

As she came out of the Assembly, the AIADMK leader told reporters that there were precedents in Lok Sabha wherein adjournment motions had been taken up before Question Hour.

Stating that the entire State was agitated over the statement of Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi of putting the Hogenakkal drinking water supply project on hold, Ms. Jayalalithaa said the Chief Minister, who sought cooperation of the Opposition for adopting resolutions on the project in the House, did not consult anyone before making the announcement. The convention was that when the House was in session, any decisions including those on minor schemes should be announced in the House.

In this instance, it was a reversal of the policy decision of the government, she contended.

“As the Leader of Opposition, I came to the House to pull up [the treasury benches] and fulfil the democratic duty. But, I was denied permission to speak,” she said.

Arguing that there was no link between the project and the Karnataka Assembly polls, she said the project was cleared at a tripartite meeting 10 years ago. Under such circumstances, the Chief Minister’s statement of holding talks with the new government in Karnataka was “meaningless”. No such need had arisen, she said.

Tracing the history of the project, Ms Jayalalithaa said former Chief Minister Kamaraj had conceived the project in the 1960s. In 1986, when M.G. Ramachandran was the Chief Minister, he had come up with a scheme to benefitpeople of Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Tiruvannamalai, Vellore and Cuddalore districts.

At that time, the project cost was Rs. 110 crore. Ramachandran had called the scheme “Kamaraj Plan Project.” When she was in power in 1994, she made efforts to implement the project, whose cost was estimated at Rs. 450 crore.

There were delays in the Union government giving approval.

After the clearance of the project in 1998, the previous AIADMK regime took again steps to implementthe project, whose cost was revised to Rs. 1,005 crore in August 2005, she said.

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