High drama in the Tamil Nadu assembly continues to soar each passing day, this time- in a direct satirical standoff between Chief Minister Vijay and Leader
of Opposition Udhayanidhi Stalin. Mocking DMK's walkout from the assembly in the past, Vijay remarked, "will answer all questions, but opposition needs to guarantee they won't run away." Massive ruckus broke out in the House, when CM Vijay stood up to speak and mocked the DMK leaders for walking out of the assembly in the past. In a veiled swipe at the opposition, Vijay remarked, "I shall answer to every question on Monday." Stalin fired back sharply, and said "we all know who ran away last time. He said this just now, and has already run away." Stalin remarked that the Chief Minister himself "ran away" from the assembly after asking the opposition not to. The Tamil Nadu Assembly earlier on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution moved by Chief Minister Vijay, urging the Centre to recognise Tamil as the principal language of the Madras High Court. Moving the resolution, Vijay said the demand was not against any language. "The Constitution of India, while upholding the federal principle and recognising the multilingual and multicultural character of India, provides various legal avenues for the States to use their respective official languages," he said. "The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly unanimously urges the union government to take immediate and necessary action to facilitate the use of Tamil as the principal language of the High Court of Madras," Vijay further said. Speaker JCD Prabhakar later announced that the resolution had been adopted unanimously. Former AIADMK minister C Ve Shanmugam said the Madras High Court should be renamed the Tamil Nadu High Court. DMK's EV Velu also made a similar demand. Shanmugam alleged a "north-south" divide, pointing out that states such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have been allowed to use Hindi in their respective High Courts, while the request to use Tamil in the Madras High Court had been rejected, he claimed. DMK's S Regupathy said his late party patriarch M Karunanidhi had initiated efforts to make Tamil the language of the High Court. He said resolutions had been passed twice during DMK-led governments seeking the use of Tamil in the High Court.
