Chennai: Former Minister and senior AIADMK leader, D Jayakumar, fully endorsed the remarks of the president of the Tamizhaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK), Vijay, on the DMK dubbing the BJP as fascist and accused the ruling party in the State of suppressing dissent and criticism by arresting its critics and putting them in jail.
Jayakumar was speaking to the media after garlanding a statue of freedom fighter Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar in Chennai when he said it was the DMK that was indeed a fascist organization though it called the BJP fascist.
Earlier, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami had said that Vijay was expressing his view and that had nothing to say on that. He even said that there was nothing wrong in quoting AIADMK founder M G Ramachandran at the TVK’s maiden political conference at V Salai near Vikravandi in Villupuram district on October 27.
Vijay’s nearly 45 minutes speech at the conference had stirred a hornet’s nest as he named the ruling DMK as the political enemy and accused its present leadership of hoodwinking the people by using the name of stalwarts like Periyar E V Ramasamy, whom he identified as one of the guiding forces of his party.
Ever since he mocked the DMK for calling the BJP a fascist organization and also projected himself as a crusader against corruption, social media has been abuzz with several self-styled critics finding fault with him on several counts. Some of the critics had even said that Vijay had the habit of taking a part of the payment for his film in cash without substantiating it.
On Wednesday, Vijay, however, praised DMK founder C N Annadurai for his legacy of handing over the tradition of writing political letters to the people of Tamil Nadu. He also wrote an epistle to his cadre, the first after the conference.
Since Vijay had no real connection with his party cadre, who were his former film fans, critics had been wondering as to how a political party could be run with a remote control.
They have also questioned his ideological moorings, wondering which side of the political spectrum he stood on, as it could not be deciphered from the guiding political icons he had named at the conference. For each one of them represented different political thoughts.
So, the key criticism against Vijay’s political philosophy is that it looks like a mish mash of several ideologies and is not focused on anything.
