Dark clouds over TN government moves away post bypolls

The ruling AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu led by Chief Minister K. Palaniswami will not face any trouble in remaining in power going by the voting trends seen on Thursday for the by-elections in the 22 Assembly constituencies in the state.

Till the filing of this report, the AIADMK was leading in nine seats while the DMK was ahead in 13 seats.

Curiously, the DMK was not able to replicate the results that it and its allies recorded in the Lok Sabha elections in the state. Bucking the national trend which favoured the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the DMK-led alliance was in lead in 36 of the 38 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu.

While the DMK and the AIADMK contested the Lok Sabha polls in alliance with other parties, it was a head-on contest between the two in the Assembly by-elections.

In the 234-member Tamil Nadu Assembly, the ruling AIADMK has 114 members (including the Speaker), the DMK 88, the Congress 8 while IUML and Independents have one member each.

To attain a simple majority, the AIADMK needs to win just 4 seats in the by-elections. In order to be safe against switching of camps by some of the lawmakers, the AIADMK has to win 8-9 seats. And they were already ahead in nine seats.

The DMK, on the other hand, must win all the 22 seats to take its tally along with its allies -- Congress and IUML -- to 119, which is just one over the simple majority mark. However, the DMK was leading in only 13 seats.

If the current trend in counting of votes continues, the AIADMK would end up with 123 members (including the Speaker) and the DMK with 101, and along with the allies the number will be 110.

Meanwhile, three AIADMK legislators were recently issued show cause notices by Speaker P. Dhanapal as the ruling party felt that they were moving towards the T.T.V. Dhinakaran-led Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK). However, the Supreme Court stayed the disqualification proceedings against the three lawmakers.

The first test for the Palaniswami government in the Assembly post the elections will be the no-confidence motion submitted by the DMK against the Speaker.

If Dhinakaran's supporters in AIADMK vote against the DMK resolution or abstain from voting, then there will not be any problem for the Palaniswami government.

Meanwhile, with the BJP-led NDA government set to return to power at the Centre, the AIADMK government will not face much problem in surviving the rest of its term.

--IANS

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