The AIADMK is afraid of losing the Assembly bypolls in Tamil Nadu, and the recommendation of the Government Chief Whip to disqualify three dissident ruling party MLAs is irregular and unconstitutional, Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K.S. Alagiri has said. He wants the courts to take up the issue suo motu and prevent any move to disqualify the MLAs. He says the Congress high command will decide whether the party will seek a share in power in case the DMK is in a position to form the government after the bypolls. Excerpts:
The Government Chief Whip has made a recommendation to the Speaker to take action against three AIADMK MLAs for “anti-party” activities. What do you make of it?
The attempt to disqualify the MLAs is highly irregular and unconstitutional. If these MLAs had violated the party bye-laws, the Speaker should have taken action against them at that point in time itself. However, based on inputs from the police that they [ruling party] won’t win the Assembly byelections, they are trying to disqualify these three MLAs. Since the election began, the three MLAs have not said anything against the AIADMK. If you are taking action against them now, it is wrong. Till now, they were part of the AIADMK, and now, suddenly, you (AIADMK) are asking for their disqualification. It reeks of opportunism, because you (AIADMK) are afraid of defeat.
How many Assembly seats do you believe the DMK will win?
Under the present political scenario, if the DMK wins all the seats, they will get a majority and will come to power. The AIADMK doesn’t want them to get a majority and is seeking to send out three more legislators. We believe we will win all 18 (bypolls). They (AIADMK) think they will win 15 seats, and that’s why they feel if they throw out three more people, it will make their position stronger. [Bypolls to four more constituencies are due on May 19]. This is wrong. What this will lead to is the younger generation losing faith and interest in democracy. Democracy is sacred. It has given rights to even those in the lowest strata of society. If this sort of illegal activity continues, people will lose faith and start thinking that the system is not right. This is dangerous to democracy. The courts should intervene in the issue.
How can the courts intervene?
The courts should take this up suo motu . The Supreme Court must take this up. The court should not allow the disqualification of these three MLAs.
You are saying the courts should take this up, but the 18 MLAs’ disqualification case has gone on for more than one-and-a-half years...
Their plan is exactly that. Taxpayers’ money is unnecessarily going waste. Every time there is a threat to the government, they [ruling party] will disqualify three people. Their next step could be to ask some of their legislators to resign so that they can hold more bypolls and run the government till then. They will even go to that extent.
DMK president M.K. Stalin says he will move another no-confidence motion against the Speaker. Do you believe it will be successful this time?
We have to hope that we will be successful.
On the issue of the bypolls... if the DMK ends up winning most of the seats and is in a position to form the government, will you ask for a share in power in Tamil Nadu?
That will be decided by our party high command. Stalin and [Congress leader] Rahul Gandhi have become very good friends. So, they will decide what needs to be done. When the time comes and when it is right, both leaders will sit down and take a decision. It is too premature to speak about this [now].
There are four more bypolls coming up. Will you campaign for the DMK?
Yes. We are very much a part of the campaign. All of us are going [to campaign].
