CHENNAI: The sudden demise of Sulur AIADMK MLA R Kanagaraj has further reduced the strength of the State Assembly to 212 and increased the number of vacant seats to 22. So, the strength of the ruling party has been reduced to 113, excluding the Speaker who is from the ruling party.
This unexpected development will mount pressure on the ruling party to win a handsome number of seats in the ensuing bypolls to the 18 Assembly constituencies.
After the by-elections are conducted, the strength of the House will go up to 230 and then, the ruling party will need the support of at least 116 MLAs to sustain its government. Though the party has 113 members at present, three of them are supporting the rebel leader TTV Dhinakaran and three more, who had contested on the AIADMK’s symbol, have been frequently shifting their stance on the support to the ruling party. Hence, the AIADMK has to win at least eight to 10 seats in bypolls to ensure the stability of its government.
The opposition DMK has 88 MLAs and its allies – Congress and IUML – have eight and IUML one respectively. In total, the DMK-led alliance has 97 members. If the party wins all 18 seats in the bypolls, it may succeed in toppling the AIADMK government though it may not get the required numbers to form government on its own.