Ahead of the Assembly session commencing next week, Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam was on Thursday named the Leader of the State Legislative Assembly, the post he held when Jayalalithaa was the Chief Minister and briefly after her death.
Senior AIADMK leader and School Education Minister K.A. Sengottaiyan was made the Leader of the House in February last, soon after Mr. Panneerselvam revolted against Sasikala. Mr. Sengottaiyan was the Leader of the House when Mr. Panneerselvam and legislators supporting him voted against the AIADMK government.
However, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami won the confidence motion in the House on February 18 last. The decision to make Mr. Panneerselvam comes ahead of the Assembly session, scheduled to commence on January 8, and after about four months since both factions buried their differences to come together.
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The forthcoming Assembly session is also the first after the bypoll for the Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar constituency in which Sasikala’s nephew T.T.V. Dhinakaran secured a massive win. The session would also be the first since the disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs by the Speaker after they called on the Governor and withdrew their support to Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami.
Presently, besides the Speaker, the AIADMK has 116 members and the DMK 89. DMK’s allies Congress and Indian Union Muslim League have eight and one legislator, respectively. Apart from the sole independent MLA and one nominated member from the Anglo Indian community, a total of 18 seats have been declared vacant following the members’ disqualification.