Puducherry: The MLA’s abusive conduct on the ODF (open defecation free) dais on Tuesday has gone viral with several people on Twitter and other platforms slamming him for misusing the solemn occasion and a government function to try scoring a few political brownie points, only to end up as a loser.
Most of the visitors to this raging controversy on the social media complimented Lt Governor Kiran Bedi for dealing with the errant legislator with dignified firmness while only a few backed him saying he was an elected representative of the people and so deserved respect they were promptly reminded by the rest on the Twitter chain that the AIADMK legislator A Anbazhagan had crossed all limits of etiquette and discipline.
Soon after the unfortunate incident, Lt Governor Bedi tweeted explaining that the MLA’s mike had to be turned off when he persistently rejected the requests from the ministers on the dais to limit his speech. “He rejected all appeals. He shouted back. I have seen him do this earlier too”, she tweeted, while also reminding that the event was “to give away awards for good work done in making Puducherry ODF”, and not for playing politics at an ODF announcement function.
The growing number of Bedi supporters here point out that MLA Anbazhagan was not even listed to speak at the function but got his mike thanks to the Lt Governor graciously conceding his demand for being allowed to speak as he was the local legislator.
After listening to him patiently for a reasonable amount of time, Bedi got an official to give him a slip of paper with a message to wind up his speech since there were other speakers too, and there was also an award distribution ceremony. The MLA chose to ignore the slip after reading it and when a second slip was sent by the Lt Governor, he put it in his pocket and continued his tirade against the administration.
That was when Bedi rose from her seat, went up to him with folded hands, and requested him to stop since he had already overshot his time. When he would not heed, she turned to the sound engineers manning the PA system below the dais and told them to switch off the mike. This angered Anbazhagan even more and he engaged Bedi in a long verbal duel she telling him politely to please leave so that the ODF function could go ahead in the scheduled time-frame and he retorting that she had done a grave mistake in ordering the sound system turned off even as a people’s representative was speaking on their problems.
Going by what Bedi said in her tweet, ‘I have seen him do this earlier too’, it appears that the AIADMK legislator has a history of ‘robust’ politics, particularly on public dais.
