Bengaluru: Tamil Nadu speaker P. Dhanapal on Monday disqualified 18 legislators from the ruling party’s dissident faction led by T.T.V. Dinakaran on the grounds that they had switched their ‘party’.
At least 19 legislators had withdrawn support to the Edapaddi Palaniswamy led Tamil Nadu government. Palaniswamy leads the largest faction of the ruling All India Anna Dravika Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) party by a distance.
Dhinakaran, the sidelined deputy general secretary of the party, had engineered the split after he was ousted following the merger of the factions led by Palaniswamy and deputy chief minister O.Pannerselvam.
The Speaker’s move comes ahead of a Madras High Court decision on an opposition plea for a floor test of the government’s strength in the assembly.
While the government is likely to sail through if a floor test if it’s called for -- especially after Monday’s disqualifications -- the court’s decision on Wednesday will be crucial.
Adding a fresh twist to the political maneouverings in Tamil Nadu, Dhinakaran declared, “We will approach the court on the disqualification issue. Our MLAs will definitely take part in the trust vote.”
Nineteen MLAs backing Dhinakaran met Governor Vidyasagar Rao on 22 August and withdrew support to the Palaniswami government, prompting whip S. Rajendran to call for them to be disqualified.
Then, earlier this month, S.T.K. Jakkaiyan, one of the 19, switched back to the chief minister’s camp.
The government has the support of 112 legislators in the 234-member house. Excluding the 18 disqualified on Monday, this constitutes a majority.
Dhinakaran’s aunt V.K.Sasikala, a close aide of the late chief minister J. Jayalalitha, had attempted to take over the top post in the party and the government, leading to a crisis within the party that has lasted for almost a year now.
The Madras high court on Thursday stayed any move to hold a trust vote till 20 September.