New Delhi: Amid growing clamour for floor test, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami has said unity was the need of the hour to take the party and the AIADMK government forward, as his government faces threat  posed by 18 MLAs loyal to sidelined party deputy chief T T V Dhinakaran.

Senior AIADMK leader and Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai, however, dismissed any threat to the government in the wake of revolt by the 18 MLAs, who have expressed lack of confidence in Palaniswami’s leadership.

He said the state government was strong and there was no division in the party. Dhinakaran, nephew of jailed AIADMK chief V K Sasikala has sought to assert his authority by stripping four ministers of party posts while MLAs loyal to him continued to stay put in a resort in Puducherry.

DMK’s ally Congress pitched for a floor test in the assembly, a day after the Dravidian party made a similar demand claiming 22 AIADMK MLAs had submitted letters to Governor Ch Vidayasagar Rao expressing lack of confidence in the chief minister.

In the 234-member assembly, the AIADMK has 134 MLAs. Sasikala’s brother V Divakaran, meanwhile, claimed the Palaniswami ministry had “lost majority” and sought his resignation.“Such a government cannot continue. Palaniswami has to resign,” he said at Kumbakonam.

Thambidurai told reporters in Chennai that the “Tamil Nadu government under the leadership of Palaniswami is strong. There are no divisions,” he added. Palaniswami later made the comments on unity at a government function in Ariyalur where he shared the dais with his deputy O Panneerselvam for the first time after the merger of two AIADMK factions led by them.