Chennai, May 13 (UNI) The no confidence motion to prove the strength of the newly-formed TVK Government headed by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay, began in the Tamil Nadu Assembly on Wednesday morning.
The four-day regime is facing its first acid test as Vijay, whose TVK has emerged as the single largest party with 108 MLAs, but lacked majority, moved the motion to prove its majority in the 234-member House.
After Vijay moved the motion, floor leaders of supporting parties, including Congress, CPI, CPI(M), VCK and IUML spoke in favour of the motion pledging their support for the Chief Minister to keep the communal BJP which could not gain any foothold in the state and was trying to gain backdoor entry.
After the expelled lone Legislator Kamaraj of AMMK, an ally of the AIADMK-led NDA, spoke pledging his support to Vijay, amid some interruptions, another ally, the PMK floor leader Ms Sowmya Anbumani hailed some of the measures launched by the Chief Minister, including ordering shutting down of 717 state-owned TASMAC liquor outlets within two weeks, and announced that four PMK legislators are abstaining from voting.
Vijay in his first stint in electoral politics within two years of floating his own outfit, made a stunning entry winning 108 seats, heralding a new era in the Dravidian heartland and ending the six-decade long entrenched biopolar domination by DMK and AIADMK, with the actor-turned-politician himself winning from two seats.
Of the present 107 MLAs, after Vijay resigned one of two seats from where he was elected, the Madras High Court has restrained one of his party MLAs, Seenivasa Sethupathy, elected by a margin of one vote, from taking part in the No-Confidence motion on a petition moved by former DMK Minister K R Periyakaruppan challenging his election and sought recounting of postal ballots alleging that the votes polled in Tirupattut constituency in the southern Sivagana district,was sent to another constituency--Tirupattur in Tirupattur district, which put the TVK's strength at 106.
Vijay however reached out to the allies of the DMK, which has emerged as the second largest party and as the principal Opposition, and the five parties came forward to extend their support, with Congress breaks ranks with the Dravidian major, allied with TVK and pledged the support of its five MLAs, while CPi, CPI-M, VCK and IUML with two MLAs ech, pledging their outside support unconditionally, stretching the numbers to 119, past the halfway magical mark of 118.
In this context, Vijay's victory chances got a major boost, when 30 'rebel MLAs' of the AIADMK, who are aligned against Party General Secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami openly announcing their decision to support the TVK government. Since both the groups, the other being headed by EPS, with the backing of 17 of the total 47 Legislators, submitting separate letters announcing election of Legislature Party Leaders of their camps, a decision is left to Speaker JCD Prabhakaran to take a final decision, though the EPS camp had been maintaining that all the MLAs should abide by the orders of the Party Whip and former Minister Agri S S Krishnamurthy and those violating it would attract disqualification under thhe anti-defection law.
Tamil Nadu Governor R V Arlekar, while inviting him to form the Government on Saturday night, has directed him to prove his majority within three days (by tomorrow), after he was sworn-in on Sunday, heralding assumption of a non-DMK, non-AIADMK regime for the first time since 1967.
A day after he assumed office, the newly elected MLAs took oath as members of the House on Monday and the elections for the post of Speaker and Deputy Speaker was held the next day leading to moving the confidence motion in the House today to prove his majoirty.
Ahead of the Trust vote, the ruling TVK has elected its Virugambakkam MLA R Sabarinathan as the Government's Whip.
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