CPM walks out after duel with Speaker

CHENNAI: CPM members in the State Assembly on Friday had a wordy duel with Spe-aker D Jayakumar over delay in taking up certain issues for discussion during the zero hour and, in the end, staged a walk-out.Later, taking exception to the remarks made by CPM members and the way in which CPM MLA K Balabharathi raised questions against the Chair, the Speaker censured her for her behaviour. Balabharathi had pointed fingers at the Chair, he said and added that her conduct was very unfortunate. Even a privilege issue could be raised against her.During zero hour, when CPM floor leader A Soundarajan raised the issue of kidnap of Sukma district Collector Alex Paul Menon, the Sp-eaker said there had been many developments in the issue and CM J Jayalalithaa had requested the PM to take immediate steps to rescue the Collector.CPM members Balabharathi and K Balakrishnan also wanted to speak about the strike by sugar mill workers and some other issues and Balabharathi made some remarks that were expunged by the Speaker.He said the CPM members were allowed to raise more number of questions than the ruling party members and much time was given to them during discussions. The Speaker said he had not been allotting time keeping in mind the number of members of each party.  Instead, he had been giving sufficient opportunities to opposition members. A visibly-upset Speaker recalled that during the previous DMK regime, he was given a seat in the last row despite the fact that he was a former Minister and was allowed to raise only a few questions though he had raised 5,000 questions during the period 2006-2011.  Most of his questions were marked as unstarred questions.