Stalin Accuses Vijay of 'Surrendering' to BJP, Questions TVK's Anti-BJP Record

DMK president M.K. Stalin on Friday launched a sharp attack on Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay, accusing him of "doing a revolution against BJP by being silent" and describing it as "surrender". In a post on X, Mr. Stalin questioned how many times Mr. Vijay had spoken against the BJP and how many protests his TVK had organised against the national party.

Mr. Stalin said Mr. Vijay claims to have stopped acting in films but continues to act before the people, referring to his "dialogue delivery" at a shooting in Madurantakam. He posed a series of questions to the Chief Minister.

'Buying MLAs'

The DMK leader asked how Mr. Vijay could call TVK a pure force and the DMK an evil force while keeping Maragatham Kumaravel, whom he allegedly bought over from the AIADMK, by his side. He asked whether buying MLAs of the NDA even before the indelible ink on people's fingers faded was what Mr. Vijay called a pure force.

He sought to know if Mr. Vijay had seen the reception TVK candidates were receiving from people, asking whether he was unaware that people were chasing them away and asking how much money they took from the TVK.

Responding to Mr. Vijay's remarks that the DMK and the BJP are one and the same, Mr. Stalin asked whether people did not know who had rushed into the Assembly to demand that remarks against the BJP made by a Minister be expunged from the records.

'False claims'

Mr. Stalin mocked the government's schemes as extensions of those introduced by the DMK, saying the only innovative schemes were the "Vettri power-cut scheme, the Vettri sickle-attack scheme, the Vettri price-rise scheme, the Vettri dengue-fever scheme, and the Vettri milk-shortage scheme".

He also accused Mr. Vijay of falsely claiming that DMK members were speaking in a derogatory manner about women and asked him to look at the track record of his own "virtual abusers". Referring to the Gem Veeramani case, Mr. Stalin said he had already explained the matter in detail and that Mr. Vijay had not updated his script. He questioned whether officials had not informed Mr. Vijay about the Madras High Court's observation that the case should not be politicised.

Referring to the Karur stampede at a rally addressed by Mr. Vijay last year in which 41 people were killed, Mr. Stalin said that even though Mr. Vijay ran away and hid without paying attention to the loss of lives, he had only said no leader would want his cadre to die. He added that neither he nor the DMK tried to derive petty political mileage from Mr. Vijay's act of running away.

Mr. Stalin said Mr. Vijay should introspect and ask himself whether he was speaking with the dignity appropriate for the office of the Chief Minister.