Now, it is DMK's turn on Marina

Following the ruckus in the Assembly, Stalin who emerged out a little before 3 pm with a fully unbuttoned shirt, walked all the way from Gate No 4 till the walking area in front of annexure building. 

Speaking to reporters, he said, “We insisted on holding secret ballot, but the Speaker adjourned the House and invited us to his chamber. He (Dhanapal) himself tore his shirt and blamed us. I offered to apologise if we had committed a mistake, but he returned to the House and repeated his earlier statement. We sat in the Well of the House and held a non-violent protest. He adjourned the House till 3 pm. Suddenly, around 2.30 pm, the Speaker sent in 500 cops who tore our shirts and kicked us before evicting us by force.” 

Stalin also demanded a repeat of the confidence motion with a secret ballot and claimed that the voting held on Saturday was unconstitutional before heading directly to Raj Bhavan to appraise the Governor of the developments and put forth his demands. 

Just when people thought that it would be end of the drama, the DMK MLAs converted the now famous Marina as the stage of their political theater by holding a dharna in front of Gandhi statue along with his MLAs and thousands of party cadre. 

He told party cadre and media gathered under the Gandhi Statue that his protest was to save democracy in the state, referring to the confidence vote. After nearly an hour, during which even traffic was briefly suspended, Stalin and hundreds of party men courted arrest. All the arrested men were released later in the evening, according to police. 

Incidentally, even as Stalin was protesting for ‘democracy’ under the Gandhi Statue, just a few hundred metres away at the MGR Memorial, a beaming Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisamy and his supporters paid respects to their departed leader.   

Political pundits claimed that the elaborate drama had only fetched crucial brownie points for Stalin.