The Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal on Monday disqualified 18 MLAs backing sidelined AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran.
The Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal on Monday disqualified 18 MLAs backing sidelined AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran.
The MLAs have been disqualified with effect from Monday, under 1986 Tamil Nadu Assembly Members party defection law.
The MLAs who have been disqualified are Thangatamilselvan, R Murugan, Mariappan Kennedy, K Kathirkamu, C Jayanthi Padmanabhan, P Palaniappan, V Senthil Balaji, S Muthiah, P Vetrivel, NG Parthiban, M Kothandapani, TA Elumalai, M Rengasamy, R Thangadurai, R Balasubramani, SG Subramanian, R Sundarraj and K Uma Maheswari.
Dhinakaran said his MLAs will approach the court against the disqualification even as the rebels dubbed the move as a "murder of democracy".
"Our MLAs will move the court and we will get justice," he told reporters at Kancheepuram district.
MLAs owing allegiance to Dhinakaran had met Governor and submitted a letter saying that Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) has lost their confidence by inducting OPS as deputy CM without consulting them.
Dhinakaran had escalated his attack against Chief Minister K Palaniswami since the August 21 merger of the OPS and EPS camps. "If the Chief Minister is not changed, we are prepared to bring this government down," Dhinakaran had said.
He had also vowed to 'end this rule of betrayal' within a week.
In the 234-member state Assembly, AIADMK has 134 MLAs including the Speaker. The RK Nagar seat is vacant following the death of the Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa last year.
The merger of AIADMK factions facilitated the return of Panneerselvam to the government as Finance minister, isolating Deputy General Secretary TTV Dhinakaran, Sasikala's nephew, and his camp.
Following the revolt of Dhinakaran camp MLAs against Palaniswami, they were all initially put up at a resort in Puducherry.They later shifted to a resort in Coorg in Karnataka and are since staying there.
Last week, the party's merged factions under Edappadi Palaniswami and O Panneerselvam on Tuesday declared late chief minister J Jayalalithaa as AIADMK's "permanent" general secretary and annulled the appointment of V K Sasikala as interim general secretary.
Meanwhile, the Madras High Court had directed that no floor test be held in the state Assembly till September 20.
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