Karunanidhi wants DMK MLAs pardoned, to have opposition in assembly

CHENNAI: Coming to the support of fellow opposition party DMDK, whose six MLAs were suspended for allegedly creating ruckus in state Assembly last month, DMK President M Karunanidhi today urged the ruling AIADMK to be "magnanimous and commute the punishment."

"The AIADMK should realise that it is not proper in a democracy to run the Assembly without the main opposition party, and be magnanimous and commute their punishment," he said.

Karunanidhi said that his party representatives in the Privileges Committee had argued against any further punishment for the MLAs, but they were ignored.

The six MLAs - V C Chandrakumar, R Mohanraj, L Venkatesan, S R Parthiban, C H Sekhar and K Thinakaran - were suspended on Tuesday for 10 days in the next session and stripped off their monthly salaries and other entitlements as legislators.

The DMDK members were evicted and suspended en masse on February 19 for the rest of the current session after the House witnessed tumult with the Speaker's podium being damaged and marshals being attacked in the corridor.

Karunanidhi recalled that similar incidents had occurred during the previous DMK regime when an AIADMK MLA was suspended for six months for creating ruckus.

However, upon his own insistence, it was commuted to 15 days, he said in a statement here.

In another instance, when AIADMK members had been evicted en masse, he deputed ruling party representatives, including his son M K Stalin to pacify them with an aim to ensure their participation in the debate on the grants for Electricity department, Karunanidhi recalled.