CHENNAI: At the end of an increasingly farcical political potboiler that began two Sundays ago, ‘Edappadi’ K Palanisamy, the AIADMK leader from western Tamil Nadu who was chosen as the replacement for convicted general secretary VK Sasikala, won an incident-filled trust vote in the State Assembly on Saturday.
The fortnight-long drama that had its share of twists and turns, allegations of betrayals and conspiracies, climaxed in theatrics inside the Assembly, which left the Speaker, P Dhanapal, and Opposition Leader MK Stalin with torn shirts.
Trouble began as soon as the House met at 11 am. The Opposition led by MK Stalin backed rebel leader O Panneerselvam’s demand that the vote should be deferred or secret ballot permitted, which the chair rejected.
DMK members began protests by tearing up documents and standing on chairs to raise slogans, before storming the well of the House.
It quickly escalated to snatching the Speaker’s microphone, pushing his podium down, scuffling with the Watch and Ward staff and even heckling the Speaker, who was taken to safety by the staff.
This strategic virulence was met with calculated silence from the treasury benches led by Chief Minister Palanisamy, who sat through the ruckus without a word despite taunts from the DMK.
Having survived a testing time holed up at resorts outside Chennai in the run-up to the voting day, the Sasikala faction was not going to be provoked into making a mistake at this hour.
During a meeting with Stalin at his chamber, Speaker accused the DMK members of tearing his shirt. Dhanapal ordered their eviction, which the opposition MLAs resisted, before finally being pushed out. It was later known that the Speaker had deployed some senior police officers on Watch and Ward duty, who were key in the eviction operation.
Later, speaking to the media, Stalin alleged Dhanapal had torn the shirt himself and put the blame on his party.
Stalin’s shirt was without a few buttons and had a torn pocket by then after the forcible eviction. When the confidence motion was finally put on the vote at 3 pm after two adjournments, eviction of DMK MLAs, and Congress and the lone IUML member walk-out — the AIADMK factions headed by the CM and OPS came face to face. Final result: 122 ayes against 11 nays, and one abstention.
It is not yet clear what action it will take against the rebels, as disqualification, while valid, would bring about by-elections. The DMK, on the other hand, gained momentum and has set its sights on the near future where it believes people will choose it over the AIADMK, which has been weakened by revolt and Sasikala’s conviction.