All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) President Edappadi K. Palaniswami EPS on Wednesday removed 25 leaders from their positions within the party.
Among those removed were AIADMK leaders SP Velumani and CV Shanmugam. This came after rebel MLAs in the AIADMK, including Natham R Viswanathan, defied party diktats and supported actor-turned-politician C Joseph Vijay’s bid to prove majority in the House.
Rebellious AIADMK MLAs voted in favor of the TVK government during a confidence motion in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly earlier in the day. After cracking the whip on these leaders, he replaced them with Palaniswami and appointed new district secretaries in their place, PTI reported.
What happened during the floor test in Tamil Nadu Assembly?
TVK, which emerged as the single largest party in the recently concluded Tamil Nadu elections, won the vote of confidence in the state Assembly with the support of 25 rebel AIADMK MLAs. DMK MLAs staged a walkout during the proceedings.
This came as a relief to TVK and its founder Vijay, given that the party was struggling to reach the majority mark of 118 despite its alliance with the Congress.
On Wednesday, TVK won the confidence vote by a margin of 144:22, with the 22 holdouts being AIADMK MLAs. In this, 25 other AIADMK MLAs from the C Ve Shanmugam-SP Velumani camp voted in favor of the government, which they had announced earlier, PTI reported.
Subsequently, allegations of horse trading were raised, which were dismissed by TVK chief Vijay.
