AIADMK gets another big jolt, MR Vijayabhaskar resigns as MLA

Following a string of electoral failures, the opposition party AIADMK, which finished third in the recent assembly elections, suffered another major jolt on Monday when senior leader and former Transport Minister M.R. Vijayabaskar resigned from his MLA post.

Vijayabaskar, popularly known as M.R.V in party circles, had won the Karur assembly constituency for the second time in the recent elections. He was first elected in 2016 and was inducted into the cabinet by late Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa as Transport Minister. He lost to DMK's V.S. Anandh Balaji in the 2021 elections but won again this time.

Vijayabaskar was among the 25 rebel MLAs who had voted in favor of the confidence motion moved by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, led by the AIADMK government. On Monday, he met Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal at the Secretariat and submitted his handwritten resignation, which was accepted by the Speaker as per assembly rules.

He is the sixth MLA to resign from the current assembly. The five MLAs who resigned earlier have joined the DMK, and Vijayabaskar is also likely to join the party soon.

Following his resignation, the AIADMK's strength in the assembly has come down from 47 to 41. The assembly secretariat will formally inform the Election Commission of India to conduct a by-election for the Karur constituency, which has been declared vacant.

In little over a month since the election results were announced, seven seats have fallen vacant. Six of these vacancies were caused by the resignation of AIADMK MLAs, while the seventh was caused by Chief Minister Palaniswami vacating one of his two seats. He had retained the Perambur constituency in Chennai and given up the Tiruchy East assembly segment.

Vijayabaskar has considerable influence in the Karur district, which is also the home district of senior DMK leader Anandh Balaji. This time, Anandh Balaji won from the Coimbatore South constituency after changing his segment.

The AIADMK has been plagued by internal crisis since the elections. Initially, 25 of its 47 MLAs had defied the party whip to vote in favor of the confidence motion moved by Palaniswami. Later, four of these MLAs resigned and joined the DMK, prompting party general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami to write to the Speaker seeking action against the rebel MLAs under the anti-defection law.

Fearing disqualification, a compromise was later reached between the two factions, and 21 rebel MLAs apologized, which was accepted by the party leadership. The Speaker then dropped disqualification proceedings against these 21 MLAs but continued the action against the other four.

The AIADMK not only opposed the Speaker's decision to accept the resignations of the four rebel MLAs but also approached the Madras High Court seeking to stall the notification for by-elections.

On the other hand, two disgruntled leaders, former Ministers C.Ve. Shanmugam and Dr. V. Vijayabaskar, did not reconcile with EPS. On June 15, Dr. Vijayabaskar had resigned after consulting his supporters and the people of his constituency, and now M.R. Vijayabaskar has followed suit.

Sources said M.R. Vijayabaskar was unhappy about being removed as district secretary and wanted to be reinstated, but EPS rejected his request, following which he decided to resign.

The continued exit of leaders from the AIADMK has further increased the problems of the party leadership, which has so far failed to stem the trend.