India News:
Tamil Nadu’s ‘Operation L’: Vijay’s TVK eyes solo majority as AIADMK wilts ‘leaf by leaf’ The plan, which was originally sold as coalition management, now increasingly resembles acquisition.
Days after abandoning negotiations to induct rebel AIADMK legislators into the Cabinet, the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) has begun what leaders across Tamil Nadu politics are privately describing as a far more ambitious project: reducing its dependence on allies altogether and pushing solely towards the important number of 118 in the 234-member House.
The first visible move came Monday. Three AIADMK MLAs – S Jayakumar from Perundurai, K Maragatham Kumaravel from Madurantakam (SC), and P Sathyabama from Dharapuram (SC) – resigned from the Assembly and shortly afterward met senior TVK leader and minister Aadhav Arjuna before formally joining the ruling party.
Advertisement Officially, they resigned as legislators. Politically, however, they appeared to be volunteering for a different experiment: contesting again under Vijay’s “whistle” symbol in the subsequent by-elections.
TVK moves ahead with coalition Cabinet expansion, AIADMK rebels left waiting And inside Tamil Nadu’s political corridors, the operation already has a nickname.“Operation L,” said a former AIADMK minister close to party general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, smiling carefully when asked what the “L” stood for.
“Lottery. Or Leema. Or Leave. Read it whichever way you want,” he quipped.
The remark, which came from a visibly upset AIADMK leader, was laced with bitterness, sarcasm and frustration. It was a reference to the alleged role of politically connected financial networks, the powerful Arjuna (the son-in-law of the Lottery baron Santiago Martin) within the TVK, and the financially powerful presence of AIADMK MLA Leema Rose Martin (Martin’s wife), who is seen by sections within the party as favouring an arrangement with the TVK coalition.
It was also a dark pun on the AIADMK’s “Two Leaves” symbol, suggesting that with legislators steadily “leaving”, one of the leaves itself was being peeled away.
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