Madras HC to hear plea tomorrow seeking to nullify disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs

19 September,Chennai

In the midst of the ongoing stormy political situation in Tamil Nadu, the state interim Governor Vidyasagar Rao today reached Chennai this evening. He is expected to take a call on the demand of the dissident MLAs of the AIADMK and the Opposition parties to convene the state Assembly at the earliest. The AIADMK dissident legislators were disqualified by the Speaker yesterday, under the provisions of Anti-Defection Law.

Meanwhile, the DMK MLAs led by the party working president MK Stalin met this evening in Chennai. The resolutions in the meet criticized the Governor saying he had helped the Government by not taking action for convening the House even though 19 of the AIADMK MLAs conveyed in writing about their loss of trust on Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswamy on the 22nd of last month itself.

The principal Opposition MLAs have condemned the Speaker of the Assembly for what they call breaching neutrality in his functioning and disqualifying the ruling party dissident MLAs in an undemocratic way for creating a majority for the government. They have sought the resignation of the Speaker and the Chief Minister.

The Madras High Court is set to resume hearing the DMK petition tomorrow for convening the House at once. The disqualified AIADMK dissident MLAs loyal to Mr TTV Dhinakaran have also approached the High Court. They have prayed for quashing the Speaker’s disqualification order and to permit them to attend the Assembly when it is convened.

They claim that they continue to be in the AIADMK and have not defected to any other party. Their petitions are also expected to be taken up for hearing tomorrow. The decisions of the Governor and the Court are set to play a vital role in the present volatile political situation. In another development, the meeting of Congress MLAs will be held tomorrow in Chennai.