No-confidence motion against TN Speaker on July 1

Tamil Nadu Assembly will take up on July 1 the no-confidence motion moved against its Speaker P Dhanapal by Opposition DMK for his action of issuing show-cause notices to three ruling AIADMK MLAs for alleged “indiscipline.”

Winning the no-confidence motion is crucial for the AIADMK as the party still survives on a wafer-thin majority in the 234-member Assembly whose current strength is 232. For the no-confidence motion to be accepted, the DMK needs to ensure that it gets 117 votes, but the combined strength of the party-led alliance is 108 and even if it gets the vote of independent MLA T T V Dhinakaran, it could only reach 109.

As of now, the AIADMK’s strength in the Assembly is 123 including Speaker Dhanapal. For the DMK to win the motion, it needs to engineer a split in the AIADMK and ensure that they vote in favour of the motion. DMK President M K Stalin’s statement on Monday that a change of government was possible even without an election has added fuel to fire on whether the Opposition party was trying to create confusion in the AIADMK rank.

Referring to the resolution in the Assembly, Stalin said, “Because, on June 28, the Assembly would meet and there is no need to wait for elections for a change of government. There is a possibility even before that.”

DMK had moved the resolution on April 30 against the Speaker, after he served notices to three pro-Dhinakaran AIADMK MLAs for alleged anti-party activities earlier that day. This is the second time that the DMK has moved a no-confidence motion against Dhanapal in the past three years – its resolution moved in 2017 was defeated.

However, the notices were struck down by the Supreme Court.

Though the session will start on June 28, the House is expected to adjourn after paying obituary reference to DMK MLA K Radhamani of Vikiravandi Assembly constituency, who died a fortnight ago. The session that begins on June 28 will go on till July 30.