Chennai: Terming the vote of confidence won by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisamy as “murder of democracy”, DMK on Sunday petitioned Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao seeking “nullification” of the proceedings in the Tamil Nadu Assembly on Saturday.

In a memorandum submitted to Mr Rao by senior DMK leader R S Bharathi, TKS Elangovan and “Tiruchi’ Siva, Opposition Leader M K Stalin alleged that the motion of confidence moved by Mr Palanisami was adopted by “contravening the rules of the state Assembly.”“We urged the Governor to nullify the entire proceedings to protect the spirit of democracy and the Constitution,” the DMK leaders told reporters after submitting the petition to Mr Rao.


The DMK Working President defended the move by legislators to “resort to peaceful dharna inside the House” after his demand for secret voting on the motion was rejected by Speaker P Dhanapal on Saturday, saying “finding no other way to register our protest, we resorted to peaceful dharna inside the House.”

Alleging that the Speaker ordered expulsion of all the members of the DMK without following due procedure, Mr Stalin said assembly guards forcibly evicted legislators and many of them sustained injuries.

Recalling the proceedings in the House in 1988, Mr Stalin said when voting on the Confidence Motion was held by the Speaker with only two factions of the ruling party present in the House (it was) later declared as invalid and void by the then Governor. Mr Stalin also appealed to Mr Rao to invoke his constitutional powers to nullify the proceedings to protect the spirit of democracy and Constitution.