CHENNAI: The trust vote on Wednesday played out as expected, with the TVK government led by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay securing the support of 144 legislators, including the majority faction of the AIADMK, the other faction opposing it, the DMK and DMDK staging a walkout, and the other five MLAs preferring to stay neutral.
The House took up the confidence motion moved by the Chief Minister, and after a debate on the motion, Speaker JCD Prabhakar held a division vote by categorising members into those in favour, opposition, and neutral sections.
In the 234-member Assembly, the Tiruchy East constituency remains vacant, reducing the effective strength of the House to 233. In addition, the Madras High Court barred the Tirupattur MLA belonging to the TVK from participating in the trust vote.
With 117 votes required for a majority, the TVK government secured the backing of 144 MLAs, including 105 from the TVK, 5 from Congress, two each from the CPI, CPI, VCK, and IUML, and the MLA expelled from AMMK, all of whom had expressed support earlier itself.
But there was drama in store after 25 MLAs from the SP Velumani-C Ve Shanmugam faction of the AIADMK supported the government, while 22 MLAs from the Edappadi K Palaniswami faction voted against the motion, leading to a noisy quarrel inside the Assembly.
The 59-member DMK bloc and Premallatha Vijayakant, the lone DMDK member, staged a walkout, and four PMK MLAs and one BJP MLA remained neutral.
In all, 171 voted; 144 for the government, 2 against, 60 abstained, and four PMK members and the lone BJP MLA voted to remain neutral.