In a major setback for TVK chief Vijay, Tamil Nadu Governor Rajendra Arlekar has said that his party has not established proof of requisite majority to form the new state government. The decision was conveyed after the TVK held two meetings with the Governor on May 6.
According to sources, Vijay had a nearly 40-minute conversation alone with the Governor.
Earlier in the day, Vijay had met Rajendra Arlekar along with TVK leaders N Anand, Sengottaiyan and Aadhav Arjuna. This was followed by a second meeting between Vijay and the Governor.
After Tamil Nadu ended with a hung Assembly, dramatic shifts have occurred in the state’s political landscape.
The Congress ended its almost two-decade alliance with the DMK and extended support to the TVK. The party had won five out of the 28 seats it contested. DMK leaders, including A Saravanan, have called their former ally “backstabbers”. The Congress maintained that they are trying to keep communal forces away.
As an all-out war broke out between Congress and DMK leaders, another development both baffled and alarmed political commentators. Nearly 50 years after MGR split the DMK to form the AIADMK, it appeared as if the two Dravidian majors would reunite because of Vijay.
Sources in the DMK had told TNM earlier that the AIADMK had informally considered a possibility of both parties joining hands. While DMK sources said that they have rejected the offer, an AIADMK source maintains that talks remain possible.
The Tamil Nadu State Committee of the Communist Party of India (CPI) has issued a strongly worded press statement from their Chennai headquarters, demanding that the Governor act within constitutional boundaries.
The statement said that voters did not deliver a clear verdict enabling any single party to form a government on its own, but the results had spoken in one significant way: the TVK had won 108 seats, making it "the single largest party by seat count.”
The party clearly stated that the Governor was constitutionally obligated to give TVK "an opportunity to prove its majority on the floor of the House," not before the Governor.
The statement invoked the weight of legal precedent, pointing to the Supreme Court's landmark SR Bommai ruling — a case that had long settled the question of how far a Governor's discretionary power could reach. That judgement, along with several others, the CPI argued, made the Governor's position constitutionally untenable.
The release closed with a direct appeal, urging the Governor to "respect the spirit of the Constitution and Supreme Court judgements".