CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao asked the Speaker and the Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu to take “appropriate action” on the complaint lodged by opposition leader and DMK working president MK Stalin over the alleged horse trading indulged in by the AIADMK ahead of the February trust vote in the Assembly.
Stalin, accompanied by leaders of DMK’s alliance partners, Congress and IUML, called on the Governor on Friday to hand over the CD containing visuals of AIADMK legislators SS Saravanan and R Kanagaraj, now in the rebel and ruling factions of the party respectively, speaking about the money and gold promised ahead of the confidence vote that Chief Minister Palaniswami had won. The DMK leader asked the Governor to order a fresh vote of confidence and also to direct a probe by CBI and Enforcement Directorate into the money trail of the alleged horse-trading. “As per the direction of the Governor, a copy of the memorandum and the CD were referred to the Speaker (P Dhanapal) and the Chief Secretary (Girija Vaidyanathan) for appropriate action,” said a statement from the Raj Bhavan on Monday.
However, the Raj Bhavan noted that all three requests that Stalin made to the governor in his memorandum were matters that are already pending before the Madras High Court, indicating that the complaint being forwarded for appropriate action could well be a formality.
But, for the DMK that has been raising the matter inside the House since the Assembly convened on Wednesday, this is optics that it would welcome wholeheartedly.