TN trust vote: Stalin leaves for Delhi, to seek President’s intervention

DMK working president MK Stalin today left for New Delhi to meet President Pranab Mukherjee to apprise him of the incidents that unfolded during the February 18 trust vote, won by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami. 

Accompanied by senior leaders including Durai Murugan, Stalin left for Delhi to meet the President this evening.

His scheduled meeting with the President comes days after he had urged Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao to "nullify" the confidence vote, which was won by Palaniswami after forcible en-masse eviction of DMK legislators from the State Assembly on February 18. 

Palaniswami had won the trust vote by a huge margin of 122-11, on Saturday. 

To a query by reporters at the Airport here, Stalin claimed that his party's state-wide hunger strike yesterday was "so successful that the AIADMK is claiming that we are trying to topple their government." 

He also indicated that the ruling party may not fare well in the forthcoming local body elections.

Lat week, Stalin wrote a letter to the state governor C Vidyasagar Rao urging his intervention in the matter after Edappadi K. Palaniswami won the trust vote.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami won the trust vote in state Assembly after an unprecedented ruckus in the House with the DMK legislators throwing chairs and smashing microphones in the House. 

The Speaker P Dhanapal and DMK Working President MK Stalin displayed their torn clothes and accused their political opponents of indulging in physical violence in the House.

The Speaker had to order eviction of DMK MLAs from the House. The Congress MLAs also staged a walkout in protest against the Speaker’s refusal to use the secret ballot.