Chennai (PTI): Leader of the Opposition K Palaniswami and his AIADMK legislators were evicted from the Tamil Nadu Assembly on Tuesday for disrupting the House proceedings by causing commotion aiming to coerce Speaker M Appavu to take up an issue concerning their party.
Former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, who heads the rival AIADMK faction, remained calmly seated next to Palaniswami when the latter along with his supporters created a ruckus.
Disallowing any discussion during the Question Hour meant to raise only people's issues, the Speaker assured to give Palaniswami an opportunity to raise the subject. However, the Opposition leader remained firm. A visibly annoyed Speaker requested the AIADMK members to resume their chairs and reiterated that he would give them an opportunity to speak.
"I will not compromise in allowing a discussion during the Question Hour. I understand you all have come with the intention to disrupt the proceedings. This is not good," Appavu said.
When the AIADMK members remained standing and demanded the issue be taken up, the Speaker warned the members against stalling the House proceedings and said they were free to stage a walkout if they wished. Not a single word they had uttered would enter the Assembly records, he warned.
"Stalling the proceedings and shouting is anti-democratic," he said while appealing to them to allow the agenda for the day to be taken up.
As the AIADMK members remained adamant, Appavu directed the Assembly marshals to evict Palaniswami and the AIADMK MLAs.
Later, speaking to reporters outside the Assembly, Palaniswami claimed the Speaker did not comply with the majority decision in the AIADMK in electing R B Udayakumar, replacing Panneerselvam, as the party's deputy floor leader.
"We elected Udayakumar as new deputy leader with the approval of 62 MLAs and informed the Speaker about the decision two months ago. But no action has been taken so far," Palaniswami said.
The Speaker allowed Panneerselvam to continue as AIADMK deputy floor leader, Palaniswami said and claimed that he was not given a chance to speak about it in the Assembly. "Panneerselvam and his supporters have been removed from the party. It seems the Speaker is acting on the suggestion of the DMK," Palaniswami alleged.
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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).