CM Stalin Unruffled by Vijay Stirring a Hornet’s Nest

Chennai: President of Tamizhaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) Vijay has stirred a hornet’s nest in the State’s political landscape by making a promise to share power with his alliance partners if they were to win the elections together in future with various parties springing to their feet demanding Cabinet posts from the ruling DMK, though Chief Minister M K Stalin told his party functionaries not to worry about anything as ‘we will the 2026 elections.’

Stalin was addressing the party’s observers for the Assembly constituencies at Anna Arivalayam when he said that he wanted DMK to sweep the Assembly elections as they did with the Lok Sabha polls and fixed a target of winning 200 of the 234 constituencies.

Though he did not refer to the maiden political address of Vijay that had led to different political parties, including the DMK’s allies reacting to it, his assertion and assurance to the constituency observers of a sure victory was attributed to the TVK agreeing to share power with allies after winning the next elections to the Assembly.

Vijay was speaking near Vikravandi in Villupuram district on Sunday at the TVK conference when he reeled out a series of assurances and one of them was the share in power with allies, which had given rise to demands for immediate induction into the State Cabinet by alliance partners of the DMK.

Minister S Regupathy said that no one could separate the ‘Dravidian Model’ rule from the people of the State and described Vijay’s TVK as the BJP’s ‘C’ team. It is not even an ‘A’ or ‘B’ team, he said in Pudukkottai, adding that Vijay wanted to take AIADMK supporters into his fold and also strengthen the BJP by creating a rift in the AIADMK.

Aadhav Arjuna, the deputy general secretary of VCK, who has been harping on the issue of power sharing for quite some time, took a clue from Vijay and said that it would be a future political norm. He said giving share in power to electoral allies was honouring basic rights and greeted Vijay for making the point in his maiden political speech.

Several other political leaders like AIADMK’s R B Udhayakumar said that Vijay had made an impressive beginning with his conference and appreciated him for talking about the DMK’s corruption. He said the message from the Vikravandi conference was that the younger generation were not in favour of DMK’s youth wing secretary Udhaynidhi Stalin.

Another AIADMK leader Ma Foi K Pandiarajan, too, approved of Vijay’s stand, while BJP’s A N S Prasad was critical of the TVK and its founder, whom he called Joseph Vijay. He said that Vijay was akin to Sebastian Simon, who, in the name of Seeman, was playing the same politics.

But leaders like K Krishnaswamy of Puthiya Tamilagam supported Vijay, while TNCC president K Selvaperunthogai said Vijay’s future political activities needed to be watched before taking a decision on his politics.

Another TNCC State general secretary M Saravanan, however, came out with a statement, appealing to the Chief Minister to give representation to his party in the Cabinet now that Vijay had raised the issue at his party conference.

Since the DMK had been coming to power with the support of its alliance partner since the beginning, Stalin should set an example by accommodating members of his alliance parties in the Cabinet, he said.