Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal’s decision on Monday to disqualify 18 dissident legislators of the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has been seen as a big victory for Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami. With the effective strength of the House coming down to 215, his government now has a comfortable majority with 112 MLAs backing it. If the Madras High Court, which is hearing the rebel legislators’ petitions challenging their disqualification under the anti-defection law, upholds the speaker’s decision, Palaniswami is bound to win a trust vote when it eventually takes place.
However, it is the Opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam that seems rather upbeat about these developments. While its leaders have in public condemned the speaker’s decision, the disqualification move has given the party a sniff at power. Party officials said working president MK Stalin has asked all district secretaries to prepare for elections. If the disqualification of the 18 MLAs is upheld, Tamil Nadu could witness bye-elections to 19 Assembly constituencies, including the seat that fell vacant with the death of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, within the next six months.
Since Jayalalithaa’s death in December, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has been wracked by infighting and split into three factions – one led by her aide VK Sasikala and her nephew TVV Dinakaran and the other two headed by Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam. The Palaniswami and Panneerselvam factions merged in August. And last week, the party resolved to remove Sasikala as interim general secretary and Dinakaran as deputy general secretary. This was followed by the speaker’s decision to disqualify the 18 MLAs loyal to Dinakaran. Sasikala’s incarceration in a Bengaluru prison for four years for amassing assets disproportionate to her income has also hurt the ruling party’s image.
In such a situation, given the public anger against the government, the Opposition party is quite confident that it could sweep the bye-polls comfortably.
DMK in poll mode
A senior official of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam said district units have been instructed to get into poll mode immediately and carry out activities with this goal in mind.
“We expect the Election Commission to hold the bye-polls along with Gujarat elections later this year,” said the leader, who did not wish to be identified. The leader explained that with 19 seats vacant, the Election Commission would find it difficult to postpone the bye-elections any further, like it did with the Dr RK Nagar seat that fell empty after Jayalalithaa’s death. In April, the poll panel had countermanded elections to this seat in the wake of widespread corruption in the form of cash distribution to voters. Documents seized at that time indicated that the ruling party may have given away as much as Rs 89 crores in the constituency.
Currently, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and its allies, which includes the Congress, have 98 seats in the Assembly. If the DMK were to sweep all 19 seats in the bye-polls, it would reach the majority mark of 117. The ruling party, on the other hand, would be reduced to 116, including the seats held by its allies.
“We would fight in the courts for an immediate confidence vote and hope the court will set aside the disqualification of the AIADMK MLAs,” said the leader, who is a former state minister. “If not, we are ready for polls.”
On Tuesday, the Opposition party’s legislators met and passed resolutions condemning the speaker’s actions, and said they would decide their future course of action once the High Court ruled on the disqualifications.
AIADMK still in disarray?
On the other side, all is not well in the Palaniswami camp. Ruling party officials said 10 legislators who had supported Panneerselvam during his rebellion against Sasikala in February want greater recognition. A few seniors among them have sought cabinet berths.
However, it would be difficult for the chief minister to accommodate too many of them in his cabinet. According to Article 164 (1A) of the Constitution, the strength of the cabinet cannot exceed 15% of the total strength of the Assembly. The Tamil Nadu Assembly has a total strength of 234, which means the chief minister can have 35 ministers in his cabinet, including himself. At present, there are 33 ministers in the Palaniswami cabinet. Though 18 MLAs have been disqualified and the Dr RK Nagar seat remains vacant, this will not alter the Constitution’s mandate on cabinet strength as vacancies are not factored in during the calculation. This is because the Constitution mandates that a state should have at least 12 ministers, which will get disturbed if extraordinary vacancies are taken into account.
In more trouble for the government, legislators loyal to Panneerselvam also believe that he is being slowly sidelined by Palaniswami, who has deftly held on to the chief minister’s chair and ensured that he has equal control over the party organisation. “Even in terms of official work, Panneerselvam is not being given the importance he should be given,” said one party official. Palaniswami insists on seeing important files before clearance, even if it did not concern his portfolios, a leader alleged.
This power struggle resulted in a controversy last week over invitations for the birth centenary celebrations of former Chief Minister MG Ramachandran. Panneerselvam’s supporters pointed out that the tradition of following seniority in the order of names printed on the invitations was given a go by.
The Madras High Court is expected to deliver its judgment in the disqualification case by second week of October.