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18 dissident AIADMK legislators disqualified

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CHENNAI: Eighteen AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to rebel leader T T V Dinakaran were on Monday disqualified by Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal, giving the ruling side an edge in a show of strength which now seems imminent.


Governor C Vidyasagar Rao, who met President Ram Nath Kovind and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the national capital, is reaching Chennai on Tuesday morning and may issue orders summoning a special session of the Assembly for the Chief Minister to prove his majority.


Assembly Secretary K Boopathy said that after the disqualification under the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly (Disqualification on Ground of Defection) Rules 1986, the 18 MLAs have lost their membership of the House.


He also wrote to the Election Commission notifying the vacancies in the House after the disqualification.


With this, the effective strength of the 234-member House (where late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s seat remains vacant) has come down to 215. And against a half-way mark of 109, Chief Minister E Palaniswami claims to enjoy the support of 114 MLAs.


The DMK and its allies have 98 members.


The disqualified MLAs are: Thanga Tamilselvan, R Murugan, Cho Mariappan Kennedy, K Kathikamu, C Jayanthi Padmanabhan, P Palaniappan, V Senthil Balaji, S Muthiah, P Vetrivel, N G Parthiban, M Kothandapani, T A Elumalai, M Rengasamy, R Thangadurai, R Balasubramani, ‘Ethirkottai’ S G Subramanian, R Sundararaj and K Uma Maheshwari.


Though notices were issued by the Speaker initially to 19 AIADMK MLAs who took sides with Dinakaran, one of them, S T K Jakkaiyan, shifted his loyalty to the Chief Minister.


The 18 MLAs have neither quit their party membership nor joined another political party, grounds on which an MLA can be disqualified.


A furious Dinakaran told reporters that the Speaker’s decision was a “short cut” to gaining majority but said the matter will be taken to the Madras High Court on Tuesday.


“We are sure we will get a stay. Justice will triumph. Patience will win. Betrayal will never win,” he said.


DMK leader M K Stalin said on Monday that the Speaker’s action amounted to “cruel murder” of democracy and was an attempt by the Chief Minister to take a short cut to prove his majority in the Assembly.


The Madras High Court had ordered that a floor test should not be held till September 20.


Stalin had claimed earlier that the Palaniswami government has lost majority support after the legislators belonging to Dinakaran group withdrew their support to Palaniswami. On Monday, Stalin asked both the Speaker and the Chief Minister to resign.


— IANS


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