The Big Story: Dubious decisions

Since the death of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in December 2016, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu has gone through two splits and a merger. In February, former Chief Minister O Pannerselvam rebelled against the party’s decision to make VK Sasikala the chief minister of Tamil Nadu. Days later, Sasikala went to jail in a disproportionate assets case, installing Edappadi K Palaniswamy to lead the government in her stead. But in August, Palaniswamy pulled the rug out from under the Sasikala faction, joining hands with Panneerselvam to eventually oust the jailed leader from the post of party general secretary. Shortly after, Sasikala’s nephew TTV Dinakaran garnered the support of 19 legislators to put the government in danger.

On Monday, Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal disqualified 18 of the AIADMK legislators who are backing Dinakaran. The disqualification came at a time when a floor test in the Assembly had become imminent for the chief minister to prove its majority. The Opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam last week approached the Madras High Court seeking a confidence vote, citing the withdrawal of support to Chief Minister Palaniswamy by these 19 legislators of the Dinakaran faction on August 22. One of the 19 later moved back to the chief minister’s camp.

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The DMK approached the court after acting Governor C Vidyasagar Rao failed to act on numerous representations to call for a meeting of the Assembly to conduct a floor test. In fact, the DMK had clearly warned that indecision on part of the governor would help the ruling party manufacture a majority, which is exactly what has happened.

Until Monday, the arithmetic in the Tamil Nadu Assembly was loaded against Palaniswamy. He needed 117 votes to save the government. He had only 113, since 18 AIADMK legislators and three MLAs of other parties were firmly behind Dinakaran. With Monday’s disqualification of the 18 MLAs, the effective strength of the House has been brought down to 215 from 233. This puts the halfway mark for a party to prove its majority at 108.

The Speaker’s decision raises several questions of law that are now bound to be taken up before the Supreme Court. Foremost among them is whether the language of the anti-defection law encoded in Schedule 10 of the Constitution can be given a liberal interpretation by speakers when they decide on what amounts to a defection. In the law, only two actions attract the rules: when a legislator voluntarily gives up membership of the party or when he or she votes against the party whip in the Assembly, which amounts to giving up membership. In the present case, neither of the two seems to have been satisfied directly as the very question of which faction constitutes the real AIADMK is still under contention before the Election Commission of India.

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Therefore, Speaker Dhanapal used the August 22 letters given by the 18 legislators to the governor as implicit evidence that they had voluntarily given up party membership since they had opposed the party’s decision to continue with Palaniswamy as chief minister. They had also criticised the chief minister by making corruption allegations against him. In the past, the Supreme Court has said that anti-party activities need not be restricted to the floor of the Assembly, one of the points recently used by the Janata Dal (United) to demand that rebel leader Sharad Yadav be disqualified from the Rajya Sabha. But the Supreme Court has also criticised the use of the anti-defection law ahead of trust votes to artificially create a majority, particularly in the case involving former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa in 2011.

Dhanapal’s actions are inconsistent. While the Speaker has taken a drastic decision against the 18 legislators for their conduct outside the Assembly, he has initiated no action against ten legislators, including Deputy Chief Minister Panneerselvam, who voted against the AIADMK government in the trust vote in February. This selective use of the anti-defection does not bode well for the reputation of the speaker, who is expected to conduct the Assembly proceedings in a non-partisan manner.

In the ensuing chaos, the Centre’s role is also under the scanner. It is now very clear which AIADMK faction the Bharatiya Janata Party is backing. The failure of the governor, the Centre’s representative in the state, to act promptly on the demands for a floor test has extended the life of a state government that is favourably inclined to the Union government.

The Big Scroll

  • Sruthisagar Yamunan reports on how the growing support for TTV Dinakaran is endangering the AIADMK government. 
  • Why the governor should have called for a trust vote when 19 MLAs withdrew support to Chief Minister Palaniswami. 

Punditry

  1. Sonalde Desai in The Hindu says the sub-categorisation of the Other Backward Classes quota will help better serve the idea of social justice. 
  2. R Jagannathan points out in the Hindustan Times that lack of a concrete vision is a bigger problem for Indian agriculture than floods and droughts. 
  3. In the New York Times, Charles Blow analyses a question that has occupied a lot of newsprint over the last six months: Is Donald Trump a white supremacist? 
  4. The Guardian’s science editor Ian Sample on what the Cassini mission to Saturn taught us about the solar system. 

Giggles

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