A day after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisami established his majority in the Assembly in a vote of confidence, the leader of the Opposition MK Stalin, who was evicted along with other DMK members ahead of the voting, said his party will protest the decision in the courts.
Addressing media persons after a meeting of the DMK MLAs today, Stalin said the floor test on Saturday was against the rules and the party will take legal action.
They will also represent their case to President Pranab Mukherjee, he said. The DMK supporters will organise a day-long hunger strike across Tamil Nadu on February 22.
The rival faction in the ruling AIADMK led by former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, who is a contender for Chief Minister’s post, also made a representation to Governor Vidyasagar Rao.
One of the rival faction members, former minister K Pandiarajan said in their representation, they have demanded that the result should not be recognised and a secret ballot conducted.
On Saturday the entire opposition and the Panneerselvam faction, opposed the conduct of the voting on the grounds that over 120 MLAs of the ruling party had been confined at one location for over 10 days and brought to the Assembly directly.
They also demanded that voting be held through a secret ballot or held a week later after ruling party members visit their constituencies and understand voters’ sentiments.
The DMK members had stalled the proceedings by surrounding the Speaker’s podium, smashing furniture and tearing up files and documents after Speaker P Dhanapal said he will go by an open vote.
He later ordered the eviction of DMK members. The members resisted and were carried out physically. The other opposition members staged a walk out in protest. Voting was conducted with just the ruling party members including the rival faction and Palaniswami won with 122 votes in his favour and 11 against in the 234-member House.
For a week straight Tamil Nadu has been trending on social media platform twitter.
If #DissolveTNGovt was trending yesterday, #MKStalin and #voteofconfidence was trending today.
In a tweet today, Stalin termed February 18 as a black day for democracy and tweeted that he will continue his fight till the proxy government is removed and replaced by a leader chosen by the people.