Madras High Court to hear plea of 18 disqualified AIADMK MLAs tomorrow

Opposition party DMK has also filed a petition seeking trust vote

A day after the disqualification of 18 AIADMK legislators, who backed rebel leader TTV Dhinakaran, a petition was filed with the Madras High Court on Tuesday to challenge Tamil Nadu Speaker P Dhanapal's decision to sack the dissenting MLAs.  

The court has admitted the plea and has scheduled the matter for hearing on Wednesday.
 

The state's acting governor, C Vidyasagar Rao, landed in Chennai on Tuesday afternoon, amid growing political turmoil on account of the existing rift within Tamil Nadu's ruling party- AIADMK. 

The dissenting MLAs, who had earlier submitted letters to the governor, said they had lost confidence in the ruling party led by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami.

On Monday, Rao is said to have met President Ram Nath Kovind and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and discussed the situation with them

CM Palaniswami is also expected to meet Rao, even as political tensions have been brewing in the region for quite some time now. On Tuesday, the CM chaired a meeting with senior AIADMK members and ministers.

Another petition from the opposition party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), seeking a trust vote in a specially convened assembly session, is also scheduled for hearing on Wednesday. 

In an earlier hearing, the court had directed the state government to refrain from conducting a trust vote until Septemeber 20. The case was related to a petition filed by MLA P Vetrivel of the TTV Dhinakaran faction. He had sought the court's intervention in the matter relating to the disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs by the speaker.

Meanwhile, DMK MLAs met at the party headquarters on Tuesday and condemned action against AIADMK's rebel MLAs. The opposition party also decided to register a protest against the criticism of the states'former CM, MG Ramachandran.

On Monday, the Tamil Nadu speaker disqualified 18 MLAs on charges that they voluntarily gave up their membership by submitting the letter to the governor against the chief minister. Following this, these MLAs have lost their position as MLAs in the state assembly. The Tamil Nadu assembly administration has also informed the Election Commission that the 18 seats are vacant now. 

Both the warring factions came out with allegations against the other. TTV Dhinakaran, who was earlier expelled by the Palaniswami-Panneerselvam led faction from the post of Deputy General Secretary, has said that he still has the support of at least 12 MLAs, apart from many others who were shocked by the speaker's decision. He said that they would vote against the government in a trust vote on the floor.

In a public meeting in Trichy, Dhinakaran demanded CM Palaniswami to prove his majority on the assembly floor.

Meanwhile, the Speaker's action was criticised by former Union Finance Minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram on Monday. Chidambaram said that the speaker's decision to disqualify the dissenting MLAs was blatantly partisan, while adding that nothing could save the sinking ship of AIADMK.

Chidambaram also wrote on the social media platform Twitter, saying: "18 MLAs disqualified to manufacture a majority for paralysed TN Govt. TN is a theatre of the absurd". If the Speaker is correct, no elected leader of a legislature party can be changed by dissenting MLAs.

Questions were also raised on the validity of the decision. Speculations were rife over the decision being in line with the anti-defection rules that were quoted while taking the action. The dissenting MLAs also asked the motive of the action now, while the 10 MLAs supporting O Panneerselvam were spared from action even though they voted against the Palaniswami government earlier in a trust vote.

The Tamil Nadu Assembly has a total of 235 seats, of which one is for nominated member and one fell vacant after the demise of the state's former CM- J Jayalalithaa. Excluding these seats and the seat of assembly speaker, there are 232 seats in the assembly at present. Of this, the combined opposition, including Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Indian National Congress and Indian Union Muslim League, occupies 98 seats.

Following the disqualification move,  AIADMK's strength in the assembly has come down to 116. Of this, the position of two independent MLAs, who won under the Two Leaves symbol, is not known yet. Even without them, the ruling faction will have 114 seats, while it would require only 108 in the new situation, as against the previous 118 seats, according to analysts.