In a major jolt to All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), three MLAs quit the party on Monday. The MLAs, Maragatham Kumaravel, Sathyabama, and Jayakumar, met Tamil Nadu Speaker  J C D Prabhakar and tendered their resignation.

The legislators were part of a group of 25 MLAs, led by C Ve Shanmugam and S P Velumani, who extended support to the CM C Joseph Vijay-led Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) government.

The three leaders are likely to join TVK after the resignation. Shortly after tendering resignation at the Assembly Secretariat in Chennai, they met TVK Minister Aadhav Arjuna at his chamber.

Maragatham Kumaravel had won from Maduranthakam, while Sathyabama and Jayakumar won from Dharapuram and Perundurai Assembly constituencies on AIADMK tickets in the recently concluded Tamil Nadu Assembly elections.

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According to the rules of the Assembly, resignation letters submitted personally by MLAs are subject to verification and acceptance by the Speaker. Once accepted, the three assembly seats will fall vacant, and the Election Commission will have to conduct byelections on these seats.

The bypolls on these three seats are expected to be held along with Trichi East, the second seat from where CM Vijay won, but later vacated.

With these resignations, the AIADMK's tally has come down from 47 to 44. In the assembly elections, TVK turned the traditional bipolar contest into a three-way battle with a dominant debut.

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In the 234-seat assembly, Vijay-led party surprised many by winning 108 seats. After days of negotiations with other parties and multiple visits to the Governor, Vijay eventually managed to pull off the magical number of 118 and formed the government with the help of Congress, Left parties and Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).

However, during the floor test, TVK got the support of 144 MLAs, as 25 rebel AIADMK legislatorsalso supported CM Vijay's government.