Jayalalithaa appoints Venugopal as Parliamentary Party Leader

CHENNAI: AIADMK General Secretary and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today named P Venugopal as Parliamentary Party leader following the election of M Thambidurai as Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker.

The AIADMK's two-time Lok Sabha MP from Tiruvallur (Reserved) constituency P Venugopal will be the Parliamentary Party leader and the floor leader in the Lok Sabha, Jayalalithaa said in a party release here today.

A Navaneethakrishnan, Rajya Sabha MP and former Advocate General will be the Deputy Parliamentary Party leader and the floor leader in the Rajya Sabha.

P Kumar, the party's Tiruchirappalli MP, will be the deputy floor leader in the Lok Sabha. KN Ramachandran, R Vanaroja and K Kamaraj will be the party whip, treasurer and secretary in the Lok Sabha respectively.

In the Rajya Sabha S Muthukaruppan will be the deputy floor leader. L Sasikala Pushpa, R Lakshmanan and T Rathinavel will be the party whip, treasurer and secretary respectively.

The AIADMK chief announced the new set of office bearers hours after removing her party's Rajya Sabha face V Maitreyan from the post of president of the party's medical wing.

In a terse single line announcement, Jayalalithaa had said, "Dr V Maitreyan MP, who is the medical wing president of the party, is relieved from his post effective today."

Maitreyan was re-nominated to the Rajya Sabha for the third time as the AIADMK candidate in July 2013.

An oncologist, he was first elected to the Upper House on an AIADMK ticket in 2002.