Vijayakant suspends 7 MLAs for cross voting in RS polls

Cracking the whip on the dissidents, Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam headed by actor Vijaykant has suspended seven of its legislators, who did not vote for the party's nominee in the recent Rajya Sabha biennial polls, for alleged anti-party activities, party sources said on Saturday.

Vijaykant communicated their suspension in a letter to the members of Legislative Assembly and asked them to reply before July 10 as to why they did not comply with party whip V C Chandirakumar's June 20 letter asking them to vote for DMDK candidate A R Elangovan, the sources said.

The MLAs suspended are R Sundarrajan, K Tamil Azhagan, C Arun Pandian, Michael Royappan, T Sureshkumar, Shanthi and K Pandiarajan, who have shifted their loyalties and met Chief Minister Jayalalithaa under the pretext of taking up development of their constituencies. These MLAs have been allotted separate seats in the assembly by the Speaker.

Principal opposition party in the state assembly, DMDK, bit the dust in the Rajya Sabha polls as its candidate A R Elangovan lost bagging only 22 votes against its strength of 29 with the seven MLAs voting for AIADMK.

Needing minimum of 33 votes, the party unsuccessfully attempted to secure the support of Congress, which chose to back erstwhile ally DMK, ensuring Kanimozhi's re-election by 31-22 margin.

 In the elections to six seats, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam won four and Communist Party of India backed by it the other.