Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s reference recently to the incident in the Tamil Nadu Assembly on March 25, 1989, in which the then Chief Minister and the then Leader of the Opposition were allegedly attacked, rekindled memories in many of the pandemonium the House had witnessed. But what is overlooked in the discourse is that the Assembly had eventually amended its rules, even imposing a restriction on the Speaker. The restriction, as stipulated in a sub-rule of Rule 283 (1) of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Rules*, is that “the proceedings of the House approved and published under the orders of the Speaker shall not be modified or removed either by the same Speaker or by any of the Speakers succeeding him or by the House or any new matter included or annexed to such proceedings, for any reason whatsoever.”
A day for Budget
March 25, 1989, was set apart for the then Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, also holding the portfolio of Finance, to present the Budget. He was out of power for 13 years. At the same time, the political situation was quite tense. A row had broken out over the events following the police searches on the premises of M. Natarajan, then an adviser of Jayalalithaa and husband of her confidante V.K. Sasikala, and his subsequent arrest. On the midnight of March 18, newspaper offices received copies of a statement, purporting to be from Jayalalithaa (in those days, there was no extra ‘a’ to her name), announcing her decision to “quit politics”. The party’s deputy general secretary, S.D. Somasundaram, had immediately disputed the veracity of the letter. He hinted at the involvement of the police in the circulation of the letter, an allegation denied by Commissioner of Police for Chennai P. Dorai, according to materials provided by The Hindu Archives. Besides, the then Speaker, M. Tamizhkudimagan, who got the “letter” of her resignation from the House, had sought a clarification from Jayalalithaa. She had immediately denied having sent any such letter.
