Jaya names Parliament party heads, downgrades Maitreyan
Mr Venugopal will also be Lok Sabha’s floor leader
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-08-19 04:07 GMT
Chennai: Days after AIADMK’s M. Thambidurai was elected as Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha, AIADMK supremo and Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa restructured the party and appointed two time MP from Tiruvalluvar (reserved constituency) P. Venugopal as her party’s new parliamentary party leader. Mr Venugopal will also be Lok Sabha’s floor leader. Ms Jayalalithaa also named AIADMK’s Rajya Sabha MP and former advocate general A. Navaneethakrishnan, as the deputy parliamentary party leader and the floor leader in the Rajya Sabha.
P. Kumar, the party’s Tiruchy MP, will be the deputy floor leader in the Lok Sabha. K.N. Ramachandran, R. Vanaroja and K. Kamaraj will be the party whip, treasurer and secretary in the Lok Sabha respectively, according to a release from AIADMK headquarters here on Monday. 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.
Ms. Jayalalithaa had 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. “Dr V. Maitreyan MP, who is the medical wing president of the party, is relieved from his post effective today,” Ms Jayalalithaa said in a statement. Maitreyan who was re-nominated to the Rajya Sabha for the third time as the AIADMK candidate in July 2013, was first elected to the Upper House on an AIADMK ticket in 2002.