- By Talibuddin Khan
- Wed, 13 May 2026 08:32 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Tamil Nadu News: In a major action against the rebel MLAs, AIADMK general secretary Edapaddi K Palaniswami (EPS) on Wednesday removed all MLAs who voted in favour of the TVK during the floor test in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, from their respective party posts. A total of 25 MLAs have been removed by EPS, including SP Velumani, C Ve Shanmugam, C Vijayabaskar and Natham R Viswanathan.
The announcement came hours after all the rebel MLAs defied party diktat and voted in favour of TVK during the floor test, earning Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay a total of 144 votes in support. According to a report by news agency PTI, Palaniswami replaced the party posts of the 25 MLAs and appointed new district secretaries in their places.
Earlier in the day, the Tamil Nadu Assembly witnessed noisy proceedings during the floor test of the CM Vijay-led TVK government. The no-confidence motion also brought the factionism in the AIADMK out in the open.
Vijay's TVK romped home by a 144:22 margin, with all the 22 naysayers being the AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to party chief Edappadi K Palaniswami. However, 25 other AIADMK MLAs from the C Ve Shanmugam-SP Velumani camp defied the party whip and voted in favour of TVK.
While the main opposition DMK, with 59 MLAs in the 234-member House, staged a walkout, PMK with 4 MLAs and the lone member of the BJP abstained from voting.
The Vijay-led TVK government won the trust vote also due to the support from the Congress, VCK, Left, IUML and MLA S Kamaraj, who was expelled from AMMK for supporting TVK and 25 AIADMK MLAs.
'Lured with cabinet posts,' says Palaniswami on rebel MLAs
Reacting to the rebellion by his MLAs, Edapaddi K Palaniswami claimed that the AIADMK MLAs who had cross-voted had fallen to the "lure" of cabinet posts and said that what they did was "unfair and illegal."
"All the party cadre including at the grassroot level have campaigned to secure the victory for the party to show its identity", he said and alleged that the Velumani faction has "betrayed" the functionaries by supporting TVK in the assembly. "Some have been lured by the promise of cabinet minister posts and they took the others also down the wrong path. This is illegal, against justice," he added.
Defending their move to support Vijay, Shanmugam said TVK and AIADMK have a similar ideological agenda where they see the DMK as an "evil force," and this reason prompted a section of the AIADMK MLAs to support the government in the floor test, Shanmugam claimed.
Shanmugam rejected Palaniswami's claim that they will get "ministerial berths" for supporting the Joseph Vijay-led TVK government. "His (Palaniswami) claim is totally false, and there is no truth in it. We supported the government since both AIADMK and the TVK have the same ideology; to oppose DMK," Shanmugam said.