Vijay's government faces major crisis; CPM warns of leaving alliance

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government led by actor-turned-politician Vijay has been in power for only ten days, but the Chief Minister and his administration are already facing major political challenges. The latest controversy is over whether MLAs who came with support from the AIADMK should be made part of the government. The issue became a fresh topic of debate after the CPM, one of the alliance partners, warned that it would reconsider its support if AIADMK joined the alliance.

CPM told the media that bringing the AIADMK faction into the TVK government would go against the people's mandate. The party also said that the presence of AIADMK in the alliance would damage TVK's promise of "clean governance." This has created a serious political challenge for TVK and Chief Minister Vijay.

CPM said it supported TVK because Tamil Nadu was not ready for another election and because it did not want governance in the state to fall into the hands of the BJP through the Governor. Vijay, who had achieved a historic victory by breaking decades of Dravidian political dominance in Tamil Nadu, did not win an absolute majority. TVK won 108 seats in the 234-member Assembly, falling short of the majority mark by 10 seats. After intense political negotiations, the party secured majority support with the backing of the Congress, VCK, CPM, CPI and Muslim League. However, during the vote of confidence, Vijay also received support from 24 rebel AIADMK MLAs. CPM is now opposing any move to include these MLAs in the government. Earlier, the Congress had also warned Vijay about the issue. Congress leader Karti Chidambaram urged Vijay not to include the AIADMK rebel MLAs in the Cabinet. He said such a decision would seriously damage Vijay’s political image.