New Delhi, Jan 4 (IANS) Speaker Meira Kumar Monday said Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister M.K. Alagiri, who wrote to her requesting that he be allowed to answer in Tamil the questions in parliament, has not yet come to meet her.
“I am still waiting for him,” Meira Kumar told reporters when asked if the DMK leader has responded to her call for a meeting.

The speaker said she “requested him to kindly come” to discuss the issue, but he was yet to come.

Meira Kumar said she could not comment on the ministers’ absence unless she spoke to him.

Alagiri wrote two letters to the speaker before the winter session of the Lok Sabha commenced in November last year.

Alagiri, said to be miffed over not being allowed to answer questions in Tamil, was absent for many days during the budget session and the winter session of parliament.

There was an uproar in Lok Sabha Nov 26 when Alagiri failed to show up even as the issue of shortage of fertilisers and seeds was being discussed in the house.

In September too Alagiri had requested the speaker to allow him to speak in Tamil as he was not fluent in either Hindi or English.

Citing precedents, senior Lok Sabha officials had then said that ministers should answer the questions either in English or Hindi as files containing the answers to questions are written in English and Hindi.

The speaker had many times said that the matter was still under consideration.

Earlier, AIADMK chief J. Jayalalithaa also supported Alagiri’s request that the Lok Sabha secretariat should extend an ‘interpreter service’ to him to answer the queries of MPs in Tamil.