Chennai: Leader of opposition Udhayanidhi Stalin on Tuesday charged that chief minister C Joseph Vijay has turned the assembly into a “shooting spot”.Speaking to reporters outside the assembly after he walked out from the session, Udhayanidhi said Vijay delivered a `scripted performance’ instead of answering questions raised by the opposition.“Vijay came to the house with a script, spoke like an actor delivering memorised dialogues. He behaved like an actor who doesn’’t want anyone to interrupt him until he completed his performance. He turned assembly into a shooting spot,” Udhayanidhi said. He said the assembly was also turned into a cinema theatre at times. “Members have started whistling. Soon they may also dance. Such scenes were hitherto never witnessed in the house,” he said.Udhayanidhi said opposition members listened patiently to Vijay’s speech but rose in protest when the chief minister made “baseless allegations.’ The former deputy chief minister said he sought permission to raise a point of order and demand evidence for the charges but was not allowed to intervene.“Vijay, who did not respond to questions raised by the opposition during the debate on Monday, returned to the house on Tuesday with a prepared script. Yesterday, he did not answer even a single question. Today, he came after memorising an entire set of dialogues and delivered them from beginning to end,” he said.The former deputy CM accused Vijay of refusing to answer questions from the media as well. “People expect a chief minister to respond to questions concerning governance. Instead, this govt blames DMK for every issue,” he said.Vijay’s speech was aimed more at generating social media content than addressing public issues, he said. “If you watch today’s speech, several reels can be extracted from it. Everything appears designed to trend on social media,” he said.Udhayanidhi also criticised the chief minister for allegedly failing to provide clear answers on issues including the Naan Mudhalvan scheme, power cuts, farmers’ protests, law and order concerns and defections involving AIADMK MLAs.
