Governor Vidyasagar Rao invites E Palanisamy to form govt

Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao on Thursday invited AIADMK Legislature Party Leader Edapaddi Palanisamy to form the government.The Governor gave Sasikala loyalist Palanisamy 15 days to seek a vote of confidence in the Tamil Nadu Assembly. The AIADMK legislature party leader will be sworn in as CM at 4:30 pm on Thursday.

Rao took the decision after meeting Palanisamy along with 4 MLAs at 11:30 am on Thursday at Raj Bhavan.Palanisamy, K A Sengottaiyan, Jayakumar, S P Velumani, T T Dinakaran, and K P Anbazhagan, who were staying at Golden Bay resort near Chennai, met the Governor at his residence.

Around 124 MLAs, who Palanisamy claims support the Sasikala camp, have been staying at the resort for several weeks.Immediately after Rao invited Palanisamy to form the government, AIADMK MLAs hailed the Governor, and raised pro-Sasikala slogans.

The AIADMK Twitter handle, after posting the Governor's decision, simply said, '#Ammawins'. Palanisamy had on Wednesday met Rao and staked claim to form the government.

While acting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam



had also met Rao, the Governor favoured Palanisamy since OPS does not have numbers on his side. 

Sources on Wednesday said the Governor’s office had verified the signatures of the 124 legislators, whose letters of support Palanisamy had submitted to Vidyasagar Rao on Wednesday for the second time.

The Governor was of the view that the whole world knew that Palanisamy had the numbers on his side. The Governor formed the view that he would go by the time-tested tradition of inviting the leader claiming majority support.

He was of the view that the advice of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to hold a joint floor test to determine the strength of the two sides did not hold water in this case.Vidyasagar Rao’s stand was that no Governor had called for such a test, which had only been ordered by the Supreme Court, sources said.

E Palanisamy was appointed AIADMK legislature party leader by the general secretary on Wednesday, before she travelled to Bengaluru to surrender after being convicted in a Disproportionate Assets (DA) case by the Supreme Court.