Chennai: The veiled criticism of actor Karunas to the English speech of a DMK member in the Assembly sparked noisy scenes on Wednesday with DMK members protesting the remarks and party leaders defending the use of English in the Assembly.

Karunas representing the Mukkulathor Puli Padai referred to the English speech of DMK member P.T.R. Palanivel Thiagarajan on Monday. The actor said he could not follow the speech since he did not know English.

The actor said the DMK member was elected from Madurai which is known for setting up Tamil sangam to develop Tamil. At this juncture, leader of Opposition M.K. Stalin said Karunas was degrading his party member for speaking in English and quoted the rule book to point out that both

Tamil and English are admissible in the Assembly. He appealed to Speaker P. Dhanapal to expunge the remarks of Karunas. Deputy leader of Opposition K. Duraimurugan said a member could speak in any language allowed by the Speaker and pleaded with the Speaker to expunge the remarks.

Duraimurugan said Karunas being a new member did not know the rules of the Assembly, but the Speaker should remove the remarks. However, the Speaker said he had allowed the DMK leaders to express their opinion on the issue and their views had been recorded. He could not expunge the observation of Karunas since he had not used any unparliamentary word. However, DMK members led by Stalin persisted with their demand.

Finally, Palanivel Thiagarajan defended himself saying that he had studied Economics in English and did not know the Tamil equivalent for technical words in the subject. So, he had spoken in English. On any other subject, he was ready to debate with Karunas in Tamil, he challenged.