Heated exchanges continued for the second continuous day today in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly with the DMK members repeatedly disrupting the proceedings over various issues.

Speaker P. Dhanapal issued them warnings. The Ministers concerned came out with the replies for the issues raised by the DMK MLAs.

When the proceedings began, Leader of the Opposition M.K. Stalin said his party had sought permission to speak on 34 issues in the House, including the Centre’s new education policy, mysterious death of a medical student from Tirupur in AIIMS hostel, and waiving off agricultural loans obtained from nationalised banks. To this the Speaker said the issues would be taken up for discussion soon after the concerned departments filed replies.

DMK Whip Chakrapani, Congress member J.G. Prince and others urged the government – that recently waived off farms loans obtained from cooperative banks, to do the same for those obtained from nationalised banks too.

During his reply Cooperatives Minister Sellur K. Raju hailed Chief Minister Jayalalithaa that evoked sharp criticism from the Opposition. To which the Minister said: “This is my first reply in the new Assembly on an issue related to my department. Amma is our leader and it is because of her I am speaking here. What is wrong in saluting her?”

The Speaker intervened and said it was not wrong for a member to hail his/her leader and the DMK members had too done it earlier. Later Raju said the Chief Minister, as promised during the elections, waived off farm loans obtained through cooperative banks.

The Minister said Rs. 5789 crore worth farm loans have been waived off benefiting 16,94,145 farmers.

When DMK member K.N. Nehru began his speech on the budget, he showered praise on his party president Karunanidhi attracting protests from the treasury benches. Dhanapal intervened and reminded the DMK members of their earlier protest when the Minister praised Jayalalithaa.

When Nehru sought certain clarifications from the Government, Finance Minister O. Panneerselvam said he was ready to give an explanation for the second time again today as “I doubt whether Nehru was present in the Assembly yesterday”.

For the last five years no new taxes were levied and tax-free budgets presented. “The Chief Minister is particular about not burdening the people with new taxes. But still, the State’s income rose because of the steps taken by her. Investments were attracted, new companies started operations, many got jobs and tax revenue increased,” he said.

Noisy scenes prevailed once again when Nehru recalled some remarks made by Fisheries Minister D. Jayakumar. When Jayakumar replied to this, former fisheries minister K.P.P. Samy wanted to give an explanation. The Speaker denied permission to him, saying that he had got nothing to do with the current topic of debate.

This sparked protests from DMK members once again who demanded the Speaker to allow Samy to speak. Dhanapal said he cannot be pressurised by the MLAs and his decision was final.