O. Panneerselvam named Leader of Assembly

Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam was on Thursday named the Leader of the State Legislative Assembly, the post he had held when Jayalalithaa was the Chief Minister, and for a brief period after her death.

The decision to make Mr. Panneerselvam as the Leader of the House comes ahead of the Assembly session scheduled to commence on January 8 and after about four months since the both factions of AIADMK buried their differences to come together.

The forthcoming Assembly session is the first since the coming together of both factions of AIADMK and after the by-poll for Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar in which Sasikala’s nephew T.T.V. Dhinakaran secures a massive win.

The session would also be the first since the disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs by the Speaker after they called on the Governor and withdrew their support to Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami.

Senior AIADMK leader and School Education Minister K.A. Sengottaiyan was made the Leader of the House in February 2017, soon after Mr. Panneerselvam rebelled against Sasikala.

Mr. Sengottaiyan was the Leader of the House when Mr. Panneerselvam and legislators supporting him voted against the AIADMK government. However, the Chief Minister won the confidence motion in the House on February 18, 2017.

Presently, besides the Speaker, AIADMK has 116 Members and DMK has 89 legislators. DMK’s allies Congress and Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) have eight and one legislator respectively.