All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which has been battling internal strife following the loss in the recently held assembly elections, suffered a fresh blow on Monday, May 25, when 3 of its MLAs resigned from the assembly. The 3 rebel MLAs submitted their resignations to speaker JCD Prabhakar who accepted the resignations. The 3 MLAs are now joining C Joseph Vijay’s TVK party which formed the government in the state earlier this month.
The MLAs, Sathyabama from Dharapuram MLA, M Kumaravel from Madhuranthakam, and Jayakumar from Perundurai, met TVK Minister Aadhav Arjuna after submitting their resignations.
Notably, the 3 MLAs were part of the bloc of over 2 dozen AIADMK MLAs who supported Vijay during the trust vote earlier this month. Despite AIADMK chief Edapaddi K Palaniswami (EPS) passing an order that no party MLA will support Vijay during the trust vote, these MLAs had voted in his favour.
Following the debacle in the assembly polls, the internal turmoil in the party has come to the fore and has raised serious questions about the future direction of the Dravidian party.
AIADMK chief EPS has accused TVK of indulging in horse-trading after these resignations and has called it back-stabbing.
Even though leader of the rebel faction SP Velumani had denied having any intention to split the party last week, these latest resignations have again raised the prospect of a split in AIADMK.
There are now 4 vacant seats in the Tamil Nadu assembly, with CM Vijay also resigning from one of the two seats he won. By-polls for the 4 seats are expected soon with TVK now expected to win all 4 seats.
