Chennai: Mannargudi family began its fightback with 19 MLAs supporting TTV Dinakaran “withdrawing” support to chief minister Edapaddi Palanisami on Tuesday. Dinakaran also hit back by sacking parliament member Vaithialingam for his announcement that a general council meeting would remove Sasikala as general secretary of the party.

Within hours of DInakaran supporters withdrawing support, DMK working president MK Stalin demanded the immediate convening of assembly for a floor test as the Edapaddi Palansami government has lost majority.

He said in a letter to governor that 22 MLAs had withdrawn support to the government. Citing the SR Bommai case, Stalin urged the governor to convene the assembly forthwith and order EPS to seek trust vote to prove his strength on the floor of the house.

The continuation of the government is unconstitutional, Stalin said in his letter to the governor, now circulating on social media.

Stalin’s letter comes shortly after 19 MLAs of Dinakaran camp calling on governor and formally informing him of withdrawing support to Edapaddi Palanisami government. The MLAs urged the governor to start the “start the constitutional process” for the change of chief minister as they had lost confidence in him.

The MLAs want the chief minister to prove his strength after withdrawal of support of 19 MLAs. Citing convention, the MLAs urged him to order floor test What this means is that as per convention, the Governor will have to call for a floor test in the Tamil Nadu Assembly.

The MLAs, submitted identical letters, signed by them to the governor informing him of their decision of withdrawing support to Edapaddi Palanisamy and urged him to start the constitutional process.

The MLAs maintained that they did not resign from the AIADMK and were MLAs elected by the people, who also lost faith and trust in the government that was engaged in corruption. The government is spoiling the image and name of Amma, the MLAs alleged in a three page signed letter given to the governor.

The delegation spent 15 minutes with the governor and slipped away from the real gate of Raj Bhavan to evade media persons camped outside the entrance of Raj Bhavan.

“While this is so, slowly I got disillusioned with the functioning of the government headed by Edapaddi Palanisamy as there have abuse of power, favouritism, misuse of government machinery, and widespread corruption. For the past four months, allegations of corruption against Edapaddi Palanisamy is levelled from various sectors,” the letter signed by MLAs said. Each of the 19 MLAs submitted similar letter to the governor.

“As chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Edapaddi Palanisamy is corrupt and encouraging corruption at several levels which also have caused severe damage to the name of our party,” the MLAs said.

“The Chief Minister must be impartial and seen to be fair and must command respect from all corners of the state. But I as elected representative of AIADMK cannot support Edapaddi Palanisamy and I approach your excellency in this regard for appropriate action,” the letter said.