Sources have stated that amid the growing crisis within the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu, former Home Minister P. Chidambaram has said that Governor Vidyasagar Rao could exercise a “window of discretion” to delay the swearing in of the leader elected by the ruling party’s legislative group.
Meanwhile when speaking on the eve of the launch of his book, Fearless in Opposition (Rupa Books), Mr. Chidambaram has said that while “constitutionally, the Governor is bound to swear in the leader elected by a party which enjoys a majority, there is, however, a small window where the Governor can exercise his discretion and say that ‘for the following reasons, I would like to wait for a few days’. It [window of discretion] has not been tested constitutionally yet, but it is, I believe, available to the Governor.”
Mr. Chidambaram has said the AIADMK leadership should address
the “traction” being built around a public questioning of the election of a new
leader [Sasikala Natarajan], though the fact remains that these are internal
matters of the party. Mr. Chidambaram saw the crisis in the AIADMK as a
“horizontal split”. “The AIADMK may or may not split vertically, but it has
split horizontally. The leadership and the rank and file are not connected as
they were in the time when MGR or Jayalalitha were leading the party.
