Chennai, July 21: An unprecedented situation has arisen in Tamil Nadu with the ADMK government curtailing the budget session that begins tomorrow to just eight days.

This led to protests from the DMK-led Opposition, which will boycott the session for all but the opening day when the Assembly will mourn the children who died in the Kumbakonam school fire. One more child — eight-year-old Janani, who was in hospital in Thanjavur — died today, taking the toll to 91.

Thirteen people have been arrested so far, with a district-level education officer being taken into custody today. Preliminary investigations have revealed that three schools were being run from the same complex and that the nursery school did not even have government recognition.

The Opposition had wanted to discuss several issues, including the Kumbakonam fire, and had asked for a regular session that usually lasts 40 to 60 days. Instead, the Assembly secretariat this evening finalised a packed schedule to complete all business by July 31.

Speaker K. Kalimuthu pleaded helplessness, saying the budget for 2004-05 has to be passed by July 31 if government transactions are not to be paralysed since the vote-on-account taken before the Lok Sabha elections was only for the first four months of the financial year. But the Opposition responded by saying the Jayalalithaa government should have convened the Assembly much earlier to avoid any constitutional impasse.

The Opposition, including the Congress, PMK, CPI and CPM, is especially peeved that the Assembly’s business advisory committee meeting has packed the demand for grants for 60-odd departments into barely six days; the House also has to pass several bills.

“We have all decided to boycott the Assembly from July 23 to July 31 to demonstrate to the people how undemocratic it is to curtail the debates with the Speaker providing just one day for the general discussion on the budget and for the reply,” DMK chief M. Karunanidhi said here this evening after a meeting of the legislature party leaders of all major Opposition outfits.

Karunanidhi said the “most painful aspect” of the agenda was packing the debate for 24 government departments into a single day on the morning of July 31. “Is it ever possible for us to speak on 24 demands on a single day?” he asked.