AIADMK govt faces fresh crisis a day after merger

Chennai: Instability and uncertainty are back in Tamil Nadu politics with a fresh bout of factionalism emerging to threaten the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) on Tuesday.

The Edappadi K. Palaniswami government’s fate is once again hanging in the balance after 19 MLAs who support sidelined deputy general secretary of the party, T.T.V. Dhinakaran, met governor C. Vidyasagar Rao on Tuesday morning and withdrew support.

The development comes just hours after Palaniswami and former chief minister O. Panneerselvam buried the hatchet and formally united the rival factions of the AIADMK.

“Our priority is the party; governments come and go, but we have to safeguard the party,” said P. Vetrivel, an MLA who has thrown in his lot with Dhinakaran.

Sensing an opportunity, opposition leader and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) working president M.K. Stalin wrote to the governor urging him to direct Palaniswami “to prove his majority in the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly immediately”.

He added that “any inordinate delay in asking the chief minister to prove his majority in the instant case will pave the way for continuance of an unconstitutional government and it will destabilise the democratic norms and precedents established in demonstrating the confidence of the house. It will also give room for the evil practice of horse trading which occurred when the incumbent chief minister proved his majority on an earlier confidence motion (in February).”

Meanwhile, the state is once again witnessing ‘resort politics’, after six months. The day, which began with the MLAs withdrawing support to the chief minister, ended with around 15 of them being packed off to two hotels in neighbouring Puducherry.

The latest development has sparked speculation of a fresh assembly election, especially if a floor test is called, unless the unified AIADMK manages to pacify Dhinakaran.

In February, when Panneerselvam, who settled for the post of deputy chief minister following the merger Monday, rebelled against party general secretary V.K. Sasikala as she attempted to become the chief minister, over a 100 MLAs were sent to a resort on the outskirts of Chennai, to stop them switching sides. They returned only for the floor test in the assembly, which Palaniswami won.

Sasikala, who is currently in a Bengaluru jail after being convicted in a disproportionate assets case, nominated Palaniswami to take over as chief minister.

Earlier, Sasikala’s nephew Dhinakaran, in a series of tweets late on Monday, said his political journey will continue to extricate the party from the confusion created by Palaniswami and Panneerselvam.

“What happened today isn’t a merger. It is a commercial agreement of those who are selfish and power hungry,” he tweeted.

The merger came after months of negotiations between the Palaniswami and Panneerselvam factions with the key sticking point being the “formal expulsion” of party general secretary Sasikala and her family members.

A series of steps by the Tamil Nadu government, including the announcement of an enquiry commission to probe the December 2016 death of J. Jayalalithaa and the sidelining of Dhinakaran in April, made the merger possible.

Yet, it is far from smooth sailing for the government.

What do the numbers suggest?

While Dhinakaran, at a public rally near Madurai last week, paraded 20 MLAs, only 19 have withdrawn support to Palaniswami.

Since April, after Dhinakaran got bail for allegedly trying to bribe Election Commission officials, 37 MLAs have met him. The legislators who back Dhinakaran number far more than the 19 who withdrew support, his camp claims.

Dhinakaran had last week said that he had MLAs in the Palaniswami government who “act like sleeper cells” and will come to his side when required.

The 234-member assembly requires a simple majority of 117 MLAs. The DMK, Congress and Indian Union Muslim League together have 98 MLAs. If one goes by just the number of MLAs who met the governor and withdrew their support, it is enough to threaten the Palaniswami government.

Observers suggest that with all the chaos around him, Dhinakaran has in fact emerged stronger, and with little to lose.

“As long as Dhinakaran can hold on to his MLAs, the government’s stability is under permanent threat, and it can be toppled,” said N. Sathiya Moorthy, director of the Chennai chapter of the Observer Research Foundation.