Originally, the Assembly session was supposed to end on April 9 and was later cut short to March 31.
Hours after opposition parties in the state decided to boycott the Tamil Nadu Assembly session, Speaker P Dhanapal announced on Monday that the current session will end on March 24, Tuesday. The Assembly session was expected to go on until the end of the month with Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami staying firm on his decision. Parties had demanded a suspension of the Assembly session amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The session on Tuesday will not have the question hour; the demand for grants put forward by various Departments, originally slated for discussion between March 24 and 31, will be taken up at the House on Tuesday.
The DMK and its allies on Monday announced that they would be boycotting Assembly sessions.
DMK chief MK Stalin submitted a letter to the Speaker stating that self-isolation was crucial at this juncture and that the Tamil Nadu government was not following its own directive that it had issued to people. Originally, the Tamil Nadu Assembly session was supposed to end on April 9; it was later cut short to March 31.
During the Assembly session on Friday, pointing out that the governments of Odisha and Uttarakhand had adjourned their state assemblies, Stalin had suggested adjourning the Assembly with immediate effect. The Chief Minister, on the other hand, had stated that continuing with the Assembly session will allay fears among the general public around COVID-19.
On Monday, Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami announced that the state government had set aside an additional budget of Rs 500 crore to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. This is in addition to the Rs 60 crore that was set aside from the Tamil Nadu State Disaster Management Authority (TNSDMA) initially. Chief Minister Palaniswami also emphasised that if anyone concealed or withheld sharing information about their COVID-19 symptoms from the government, strict action will be taken against them.
Source: The News Minute