DMK withdraws no trust motion against Speaker Dhanapal

CHENNAI: Belying expectations of a stormy Assembly session amid speculation about a possible regime change, the main opposition DMK, in an anti-climax, withdrew its no-confidence motion against the Speaker, P Dhanapal, as the House commenced a month-long session on Friday.

“We have given a letter today to the Speaker saying we are not pressing the motion (of no-confidence) and hence we will not be asking that it be taken up,” the DMK leader MK Stalin told reporters outside the Assembly chamber after the House adjourned for the day following the first day condolence resolutions.

Mr. Stalin said that they had given notice to the motion against the Speaker in a “different context”. “We had then taken a decision to give notice for the Speaker's removal in that context as his act was seen to be anti-democratic. But the situation has now changed that it does not require us to press this motion,” Stalin explained the decision to withdraw the party's no-trust move against the Speaker.  “Considering all these, we gave our letter withdrawing it today,” he said.

It may be recalled that in the midst of the recent poll campaign for the Assembly by-elections, along with Lok Sabha polls, when three AIADMK MLAs had met the dissident leader TTV Dhinakaran to express support for him, the Speaker's office had sent notice to them asking them to explain their anti-party activity. It may have led to their disqualification from the House like earlier 18 AIADMK MLAs'.

The disqualification of three more AIADMK MLAs' would have lowered the half-way mark required for the ruling party to keep its majority at a time the DMK was expecting to sweep all the 22 by-election seats. Mr. Stalin had even made it a poll campaign that a new government would assume office in Tamil Nadu in the first week of June after the Lok Sabha polls as he was confident of DMK getting the numbers on its own to stake claim to form the government. But the AIADMK won nine of the 22 seats to give it a simple majority and keep it in office.

Further, the three AIADMK MLAs' had given individual letters to the Speaker after the elections that they did not act against the party's interests and continued to be part of the ruling party. This further made the DMK's position vulnerable in the House should a division be insisted upon to vote on the no-confidence motion.
Though the DMK went back on its decision, a highly placed source in the DMK said that there were three reasons for the withdrawal of the no-trust motion. First, the party had given notice to it mainly to protect the interests of the three TTV Dhinakaran-supporting AIADMK MLAs' - Prabhu, Kalaiselvan and Rathinasapabathy. But with the dissident MLAs' themselves giving individual letters to the Speaker affirming faith in the AIADMK party, it was pointless for the DMK to press the motion against the Speaker.

Secondly, the DMK perceived a “risk” in pressing the motion as none of the MLAs' cutting across party lines, were in a mood for mid-term Assembly elections now. The third reason was DMK getting wind of some of its own first-time MLAs' being vulnerable to the “net being spread” allegedly by the ruling AIADMK before the confidence motion was to be taken up on July 1.

Any such eventuality would have cost the image of Mr. Stalin and that of the party after a sweeping LS poll victory, the source said.  This was notwithstanding the speculations that the DMK too was “reaching out” and expecting some AIADMK members to vote as per their conscience that could have created a crisis for the Edappadi K Palaniswami government.      

More than these factors, a highly placed source said that firm word had gone from the AIADMK government to Mr. Stalin “not to risk facing humiliation” as none of the MLAs' wanted an election now, and that it was better to “maintain status quo”. This is also said to be a key reason why Mr. Stalin backed out.

The DMK also took into view that “this is not the right time” to press a no-confidence motion against the Speaker, particularly when the State was facing a serious water crisis. If the motion had been defeated on the floor of the House, then the DMK would not be able to move a fresh motion for another six months.

Despite Mr. Stalin asserting in his public speeches that the Edappadi Palaniswami-led AIADMK government should be “sent packing home”, in recent days he was softening his stand, first saying that there could be a change even without an election. Two days back, Mr. Stalin virtually indicated withdrawing the motion against the Speaker saying, it was not the Speaker's removal that was important but the removal of the present Chief Minister from power. Also any adverse result against the Speaker would have given the DMK an anti-Dalit image.