NEW DELHI: The Rajya Sabha (upper house) was adjourned for 15 minutes Jan 11 following uproar over the existence of ‘ULFA camps in Tamil Nadu while a Congress (I) member sat on a Dharna in the well of the house during the zero hour.

The house of elders saw half an hour of heated exchanges between members of the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK) and opposition Congress (I) members from Tamil Nadu soon after Murasoli Maran of the (DMX) the ruling party in the state alleged that the prime minister’s remarks about the ULFA camps in Tamil Nadu were baseless.

As the zero hour began Maran who had been permitted by the chairman Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma to make a submission on the prime minister’s remarks on Tamil Nadu was called by Dr Heptullah to speak.

Maran said the prime minister had made insinuations and charges against the Tamil Nadu government which were baseless. He said the premier’s allegations were a canard to beguile the people and challenged the prime minister to prove his statement about presence of ULFA camps in his state.

Even as points of order were being raised S K T Ramchandran Congress (I) rushed to the well and sat down demanding the immediate dismissal of the Karunanidhi government when DMK members moved towards him Congress (I)’s Shiv Shankar and S S Ahluwalia were seen pushing them away.

A visibly agitated deputy chairman Dr Heptullah then adjourned the house and left for her chamber.

Prime minister Chandra Shekhar had on Thursday said in the Parliament that the ULFA group in Assam was operating from six centers in Tamil Nadu in close operation with the LTTE and that insurgents not just from Assam but from Punjab and the neighboring Andhra Pradesh as well were buying arms in the state.

The prime minister even confirmed the arrests of two ULFA leaders from a hospital in Vellore (Tamil Nadu) and charged that information given by the center only to Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi had been passed on to the LTTE headquarters in Tamil Nadu and Jaffna in Sri Lanka.

Article extracted from this publication >> January 18, 1991