Just two days ahead of the deadline given by the court for the floor test demanded by the Dhinakaran faction, Tamil Nady Speaker disqualified 18 MLAs from the assembly.
After the merger of EPS and OPS faction, former AIADMK party deputy general secretary TTV Dhinakaran was sidelined by the party creating a rift and forming two factions in the party. Dhinakaran along with 21 of his supporting MLAs and the opposition party DMK had demanded a floor test and demanded the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E Palaniswamy to prove his majority in the assembly.
With 21 MLAs on the Dhinakaran side, the Chief Minister was facing tough times and to add to that DMk also moved to court demanding immediate action against Palaniswamy when the Governor deliberately postponed the floor test. The court had said that there will be no floor test before 20 Sep.
On Monday morning, 2 days ahead of the date set by the court the Tamil Nadu Speaker P Dhanapal disqualified 18 AIADMK MLAs who were supporting the Dhinakaran faction. The speaker took action under the schedule 10 of the Indian constitution, which deals with the anti-defection law and disqualified the MLAs.
Ahead of the disqualification the speaker had summoned all the rebel MLAs a couple of time, though only a few appeared before him.
This action of the speaker immediately received opposition both from the Dhinakaran faction and the DMK. A senior MLA supporting Dinakaran faction, P Vetrivel said that they will challenge the decision of the speaker in the court and that the action was patently illegal.
“The speaker has done this disqualification so that the government wins the floor test. The decision is unfair as well as illegal as 19 MLAs had given in writing to the governor that they had lost faith in the EPS as the chief minister,” he said. He also alleged that the ruling government was offering intimidating bribes in order to lure back the 21 MLAs who were staying in a resort at Coorg in Karnataka.
DMK deputy floor leader S Duraimurugan said that “this is a murder of democracy by the Speaker to help CM. He could have disqualified the MLAs if they acted against the party whip during floor test, but he disqualified those who expressed their differences outside the assembly. I have lost my respect for Speaker.”
Now with 18 MLAs disqualified, the magic number has dropped down to 215 seats and AIADMK needs the support of half the number of MLAs to win the floor test i.e. 108 votes.
The tactful move played by the party has seemingly decided the victory for the Chief Minister and the party is taking a breath of relief, confident to win the floor test.
The disquallified MLAs are S Thangatamilselvan (Andipatti), R Murugan (Harur), S Mariappan Kennedy (Manamadurai), K Kadirkamu (Periyakulam), Jayanthi Padmanabhan (Gudiyattam), P Palaniappan (Pappireddypatti), V Senthil Balaji (Aravakurichi), S Muthiah (Paramakudi), P Vetrivel (Perambur), N G Pathiban (Sholingur), M Kodandapani (Tiruporur), T A Elumalai (Poonamallee), M Rengasamy (Thanjavur), R Thangadurai (Nilakottai), R Balasubramani (Ambur), S G Subramanian (Sattur), R Sundaraj (Ottapidaram) and Uma Maheswari (Vilathikulam).