O Panneerselvam made leader of House
Since the two factions have now merged, Panneerselvam is back as the leader of the House.
Chennai: Days before the Tamil Nadu Assembly convenes for its first session of 2018, Deputy Chief Minister and AIADMK coordinator O. Panneerselvam made a comeback as the leader of the House on Thursday after a gap of more than a year.
Panneerselvam was the leader of the House during J. Jayalalithaa’s tenure as Chief Minister and lost the crucial post when he rebelled against the then AIADMK interim general secretary V. K. Sasikala in early 2017. When Edappadi K Palaniswami was appointed Chief Minister, Sengottaiyan, the senior most then, was made the leader of the House.
Since the two factions have now merged, Panneerselvam is back as the leader of the House.
An order from Assembly Secretary K Boopathy issued on Thursday said Panneerselvam would be the leader of the House replacing Sengottaiyan.
The appointment of Panneerselvam comes a day after several of his supporters made the cut in the list of spokespersons named by the ruling AIADMK to defend it in television debates.
Sources said Palaniswami felt Panneerselvam should be the leader of the House since he is the senior-most minister and also because of the fact that he had occupied the post during Jayalalithaa’s tenure. Traditionally, the senior-most minister after the chief minister is named as the leader of the House.
Boopathy’s order came four days ahead of the January 8 session of the Assembly, which will start with the customary address by Governor Banwarilal Purohit.
The session is being watched closely in political circles since this would be the first since the merger of both factions, disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs by Speaker P. Dhanapal and also after rebel leader TTV Dhinakaran won the RK Nagar bypolls.
Palaniswami and Panneerselvam had on Wednesday told the AIADMK MLAs that they should maintain decorum “even if someone says or does something provoking”, in an oblique reference to Dhinakaran.
Presently, besides the Speaker, AIADMK has 116 MLAs, DMK 89, Congress 8, IUML 1 and Independent 1. Eighteen seats have been notified as vacant in a House of 234 members.