Chennai/ Puducherry: Driven to the wall by party actions against him and his jailed aunt, TTV Dhinakaran on Tuesday dispatched 19 AIADMK legislators supporting him to deliver identical letters to Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao saying they have lost confidence in Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and asking him to "intervene and institute the constitutional process". This later prompted the DMK to demand a trust vote.
“We have informed the Governor we don't have confidence in the Chief Minister. He said he will examine our request and let us know. We only want the CM to be changed; not interested in toppling the government”, Antipatti MLA Thanga Tamil Selvan told DC soon after leading the TTV brigade to the Raj Bhavan in the morning.
Later, he led a caravan of cars and SUVs down the ECR to a resort in Congress-ruled Puducherry with the MLAs for ‘safe housing’. When asked about the resort sojourn, he shot back, “We have come here to rest for some days. Anything wrong with that?”
It appeared to be a rewind of the Koovathur excursion-only then it was a much larger group of Sasikala supporters hidden away from the then Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam's reach.
In the 234-member Assembly, the AIADMK has 134 MLAs, excluding the Speaker, while the late CM Jayalalithaa's RK Nagar seat is vacant. The DMK has 89 seats followed by its allies Congress having eight and the IUML one. The TTV camp had on Monday claimed support of 25 MLAs but the AIADMK seniors stoutly contested that. "We are sure that even those who are now there (TTV) will soon come back to our fold", said Minister Sellur K. Raju.
