Chennai: Citing the Assembly Privileges Committee notice to 21 DMK MLAs, the Leader of Opposition, M.K. Stalin, alleged on Wednesday that Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao is only waiting for a situation when the ruling party could win a confidence vote through shortcut methods by snatching away the voting rights of legislators.
Hoping that the meeting of opposition leaders with President Ram Nath Kovind would be fruitful, Stalin said DMK would take legal course if the President too did not respond to the demand of opposition parties to order a floor test for Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami.
He also accused Governor Vidyasagar Rao of playing politics, after the latter rejected the demand of opposition leaders to direct Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami to prove his majority in the Assembly.
Reacting to the Governor’s reported remarks that he could not intervene in the intra-party feud of the AIADMK, Stalin recalled that the same Governor had ordered Palaniswami to prove his majority when former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam with just 10 MLAs met the Governor. He asked “Didn’t the Governor know it is an intra-party feud? The Governor’s reaction only showed that the BJP wanted to ‘guide a minority puppet government’ in the state.”
Stalin, who met the media at the DMK headquarters in the city, said the representatives of opposition parties would meet the President on August 31 and hoped that the meeting would be fruitful.
The Governor should not decide whether the government enjoyed the majority or not, Stalin said and added that the majority should be decided on the floor of the Assembly as per the Supreme Court verdict in the S.R. Bommai case.
He alleged that the Governor is trying to help BJP enter Tamil Nadu through backdoor and failing in his political, constitutional and ethical responsibility, Stalin said.
He said 19 MLAs withdrawing their support to the Chief Minister could not be treated as intra-party feud that too when Speaker P. Dhanapal had issued notices to them.
