Arch rivals AIADMK and DMK were today engaged in a war of words in the Tamil Nadu Assembly over depiction of leaves on recently introduced small bus services, culminating in the eviction of the opposition party members.
Trouble erupted when Municipal Administration Minister K P Munusamy made some remarks against DMK member E V Velu, a former AIADMK man, resulting in high-decibel exchange of words between the Treasury and DMK benches.
Speaker P Dhanapal announced that none of the remarks made by DMK members will go on record, even as the opposition MLAs remained standing, demanding that they also be allowed to speak.
Suddenly, DMK members S S Sivasankaran, Soundarapandian and Dravida Mani went and squatted before the Speaker's chair, prompting him to ask them to resume their seats.
With his repeated pleas going unheeded, Dhanapal summoned the marshals to evict the DMK members. The three MLAs who had squatted before the Speaker where physically removed, while the others were guided out by the marshals.
Later, Transport Minister K T Senthil Balaji denied DMK's contention that the leaves symbol on the small buses were representative of ruling AIADMK's symbol, the Two Leaves.
Leaves were printed on the sides of the buses to depict greenery and DMK had raised such an allegation since they had nothing else to complain about and unable to stand the popularity of the government initiative, he said, adding, more than 1.4 lakh passengers had used the services in the first four days of its launch.
