Vijay made a dramatic electoral debut in Tamil Nadu after his party, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, emerged as the single largest party in the Assembly elections with 108 seats. However, the party remains 10 seats short of the 118-mark required for a majority in the 234-member Tamil Nadu Assembly. The political developments have now triggered a major constitutional debate after Governor Rajendra Arlekar reportedly declined to immediately invite Vijay to form the government and instead asked him to return with written support from at least 118 MLAs.
According to reports, Vijay met the governor and submitted signatures of 107 MLAs, including his own, while also verbally informing him that five Congress legislators were extending support to his claim for government formation. Despite this, the governor reportedly refused to proceed without formal proof showing majority support crossing the required 118-seat mark. With only three days left before the term of the outgoing Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government ends, the issue has escalated into a wider constitutional and political controversy surrounding the discretionary powers of governors in situations involving a fractured mandate or hung Assembly.
The dispute has revived longstanding constitutional questions regarding whether a governor is obligated to first invite the single largest party to form the government or whether the governor has the authority to independently assess competing claims of majority support before making such an invitation. Constitutional experts, senior advocates, and political leaders have offered sharply different interpretations based on constitutional provisions, Supreme Court judgments, and recommendations of various commissions established to examine Centre-state relations and gubernatorial powers.
Former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi strongly criticised the governor’s reported position and argued that the Constitution effectively requires the governor to first invite the single largest party to form the government. According to Rohatgi, the governor’s role at this stage is extremely limited and does not extend to demanding pre-verified support from 118 legislators before inviting a party to take office. He argued that the correct constitutional course is to allow the party to form the government first and then prove its majority through a floor test inside the Assembly.
Rohatgi further stated that the governor can, at most, verify whether the signatures submitted by MLAs are genuine, but numerical strength must ultimately be determined publicly on the floor of the House and not within Raj Bhavan. He also pointed out that India has witnessed several minority governments in the past, which functioned constitutionally despite not initially possessing an absolute majority. According to him, insisting on pre-confirmed majority support before inviting a party to form the government is contrary to constitutional practice and democratic convention.
Senior Advocate Neeraj Kishen Kaul offered a more balanced interpretation of the constitutional framework. Kaul explained that Article 163 of the Constitution grants governors a certain degree of discretion while deciding whom to invite to form the government in situations where no party has secured a clear majority. He stated that the Constitution itself does not provide a rigid formula specifying whether priority should go to the single largest party or to a coalition claiming majority support after the elections.
At the same time, Kaul agreed that the governor cannot insist on written support from 118 MLAs before extending an invitation to form the government. Referring to the landmark Supreme Court judgment in S. R. Bommai vs Union of India, he noted that the court had clearly stated legislative majority must be demonstrated publicly on the Assembly floor through a confidence vote. According to Kaul, this principle firmly establishes the floor test as the final constitutional mechanism for determining legitimacy and majority support.
Kaul also observed that the Supreme Court deliberately avoided laying down a fixed sequence regarding whom governors should invite first in cases of fractured mandates. He referred to the recommendations of the Sarkaria Commission established in 1988 and the Punchhi Commission formed in 2010. The Sarkaria Commission had recommended giving preference first to pre-poll alliances, then to the single largest party, and finally to post-poll coalitions. However, Kaul pointed out that these recommendations were never fully endorsed by the judiciary as binding constitutional rules.
According to Kaul, the Punchhi Commission introduced further ambiguity by suggesting that governors may invite the “party or combination of parties which commands the widest support in the Legislative Assembly.” He explained that this wording potentially includes post-poll alliances and not merely pre-election coalitions. As a result, the constitutional position remains open to interpretation depending on the political circumstances of each case.
Kaul further referred to important Supreme Court interventions in states such as Goa and Karnataka. In Chandrakant Kavlekar vs Union of India, the governor invited a post-poll alliance to form the government, and the Supreme Court refused to interfere while directing a quick floor test. Similarly, in G Parmeshwara vs Union of India, the governor invited the single largest party, and once again the Supreme Court refrained from questioning the governor’s discretion, choosing instead to order an immediate floor test. According to Kaul, these cases demonstrate that courts have generally respected gubernatorial discretion provided the majority is tested quickly inside the Assembly.
Senior Advocate and Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi, however, took a far more critical view of the governor’s reported decision. Singhvi argued that constitutional morality, democratic conventions, and long-established precedent clearly require the governor to invite the single largest party when no alternative alliance has formally staked claim to government formation. He described the governor as the “repository of constitutional wisdom” and insisted that there was effectively “no alternative” but to first call the largest party to form the government.
Singhvi also dismissed concerns regarding the shortfall in numbers, noting that the gap was relatively small and could easily be resolved through a floor test within a limited timeframe of 10 to 12 days. He warned that any attempt to depart from established constitutional conventions would weaken democratic principles and undermine the federal structure envisioned by the Constitution.
The ongoing controversy in Tamil Nadu has therefore evolved into much more than a routine post-election political dispute. It has once again exposed the unresolved constitutional tensions surrounding gubernatorial discretion, the absence of universally accepted conventions in hung Assemblies, and the repeated dependence on judicial intervention whenever disputes over government formation arise.
Despite the differing legal interpretations and political arguments, almost all constitutional experts involved in the debate agree on one point: the final and decisive test of legitimacy in a parliamentary democracy remains the confidence vote conducted on the floor of the Legislative Assembly.
