Chennai: Meeting each of his party MLAs individually at a five-star resort on Wednesday, Chief Minister and TVK president C Joseph Vijay cautioned them against the machinations of the opposition parties scheming to topple the government through design and warned the MLAs of serious action if they breached the party’s ethical code.
The invitation to the MLAs for attending the meeting was issued on Tuesday mentioning the party headquarters in Panaiyur as the venue, which was subsequently shifted to the Intercontinental beach resort in Mamallapuram, following a spate of complaints against party legislators.
The event started at around 4 pm with Vijay calling in women legislators one after the other for a discussion first and sending them off from the resort, after presenting each of them silk saris as Deepavali gifts. Later, he called in the men for discussion when the Chief Minister is said to have told the MLAs that there was a conspiracy to topple the government by engineering defections.
The MLAs, too, shared their apprehensions, besides complaining about officials not complying with instructions and acting on their own. Vijay is said to have taken notes on the discussions and promised to look into their grievances.
The meeting was called in the backdrop of a spate of complaints against MLAs, including one on the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly, M Ravishankar, who was accused of attacking a TVK member for approaching him with grievance on lack of civic amenities in his constituency .
Another MLA representing Kallakurichi, C Arul Vignesh, was caught in a controversy over alleged harassment of the woman district collector J E Padmaja by sending her obscene messages and even dropping in at her doorstep in a drunken state.
Though the MLA denied the charges and the case relating to the Deputy Speaker was being investigated by TVK general secretary N Anand, the party high command took note of the incidents that had brought a bad name to the party.
The idea behind meeting the MLAs individually was to enable Vijay admonish them personally over the wrong doings and also issue strict warnings. The men were also given Deepavali gifts of dhoti and shirt sets, party sources said.
Not only did the exercise give an opportunity to the MLAs to express their grievances to their top leader but also opened an avenue for the leadership to get an insight into the ground level issues confronting the party.
Since the one-to-one discussions had an aura of confidentiality, the MLAs, including the women, were able to be candid and open about even other party leaders.
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