Tamil Nadu Assembly session begins with Governor’s address, BAC to decide duration

Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar will deliver the customary address to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly at 10 a.m. on Thursday. This marks the first session of the House after the government led by Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay assumed office and won the trust vote.

The Governor’s address follows parliamentary tradition, providing an outline of the government’s agenda. In previous sessions, former Governor R.N. Ravi had disagreements with the then DMK government on various matters, which on some occasions led to the Governor walking out of the House. No such incidents have been reported ahead of this session.

A newly constituted Business Advisory Committee (BAC) will meet on Thursday afternoon to decide the duration of the session. The BAC is chaired by Speaker J.C.D. Prabhakar and includes Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay, Ministers N. Anand, K.A. Sengottaiyan (Leader of the House), R. Nirmalkumar, S. Rajeshkumar, Vanni Arasu, and Chief Government Whip R. Sabarinathan. Other members are Leader of the Opposition Udhayanidhi Stalin, E.V. Velu and S.S. Sivasankar of the DMK; Edappadi K. Palaniswami and O.S. Manian of the AIADMK; Sowmiya Anbumani of the PMK; R. Chellaswamy of the CPI(M); T. Ramachandran of the CPI; and Syed Farooq Basha of the IUML.

The current strength of the Assembly is 228 following the resignation of Mr. Vijay from the Tiruchi East seat (he retained the Perambur seat) and the resignations of five AIADMK MLAs — Maragatham Kumaravel, P. Sathyabama, S. Jayakumar, Esaki Subaya, and C. Vijayabaskar.