Floor test in absence of DMK members unconstitutional: M.K. Stalin

Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], Feb. 18 (ANI): The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) on Saturday wrote to Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao dubbing the floor test conducted in the absence of his party members as foul and unconstitutional. "The agenda of the Speaker is to go ahead with voting and announce that the Chief Minister has succeeded in getting the confidence of the House, in the absence of the DMK members. This is totally a foul play and unconstitutional," the letter stated. The letter further requested the Governor to restore democratic values and order the Assembly postponement for conducting a secret voting on Confidence Motion. "We request the Governor to restore democratic values and order postponement of the Assembly for conducting secret voting on the Confidence Motion," it read. The DMK also stated the reason behind demanding for secret voting and narrated the entire course of incidents. "We insisted secret voting. This request was made in view of the fact that a number of DMK legislators were held as hostage in a resort 70 kilometers away from Chennai and they were brought for voting under tight security and threat and that they will not be able to exercise their voting according to conscience and free will," the letter read. "We pleaded with the Speaker to postpone voting to a future date. The Speaker did not listen to us and tried to carry on with open voting. The Speaker adjourned the House twice. Therefore we resorted to dharna in a very peaceful manner, as the Speaker ordered expulsion of all the DMK members en bloc. The police entered into the Assembly Hall and removed us by using force, presumably under the instructions of the Speaker. Many of our members have sustained injury," the letter further read. Earlier in the day, DMK working president M.K. Stalin and other MLAs were detained by police for protesting against the floor test result at Chennai's Marina Beach. Amid the uproar in the Tami Nadu Assembly during Saturday's much-anticipated floor test, Palanisamy won the vote of confidence with 122 MLAs supporting him. The floor test took place in Block Two of the Tamil Nadu assembly. The Tamil Nadu assembly witnessed a huge ruckus earlier in the day during the floor test with DMK working president M.K. Stalin alleging that his shirt was torn off when the assembly police forcefully evicted his party MLAs and the Speaker tore of his shirt himself and blamed the MLAs of the DMK for it. "We were told that assembly will reconvene at 3 p.m., but at 2 p.m. police came and tried to forcefully evict us. My shirt was also torn," Stalin said. (ANI)