Nearly a year after the tragic stampede that killed 41 persons during his party’s rally in Karur, TVK founder and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay on Friday made his first visit to the district.
In his maiden visit to the district after becoming CM, Vijay targeted the DMK for trying to gain "political mileage" from the incident and slammed the party for restraining him from visiting this western town.
Vijay faulted the police for not alerting him about the swelling crowd at the TVK venue on September 27, nor taking any steps to cancel the meeting, as the crowd had become unmanageable to control.
"The police could have alerted us that the crowd was swelling and becoming unmanageable to control. The police have the right to cancel the meeting. Without doing so, the police escorted us on the highway," Vijay said in his address at a public meeting.
He could not meet the affected 41 families in Karur last year, but had those affected families brought near Chennai and personally consoled them.
Vijay said, "I trusted the police fully and even thanked them at the meeting. I didn't know about the drama. Who is responsible for this? Under whose instruction was all this done?"
"They tried to gain political mileage," out of the tragedy, he said in an apparent reference to the DMK, then in the ruling saddle.
He claimed that the DMK cannot be reformed, and it doesn't seem like they are willing to change either. "I urge the people to give the DMK a fitting reply in the upcoming by-election," he said.
"You (DMK) accused me of hiding and uttered many things against me," Vijay said at the meeting and claimed that the police had advised him against visiting Karur immediately after the stampede occurred.
"I am not a politician who looks for political gains. I have come to politics to thank the people, to serve them. Did you think I would run away? If you ask me to choose between money and people, I will say people. People alone are important to me," Vijay said.
Sharpening his attack, Vijay said that while the DMK ran a corrupt regime raising "party funds" from each government department, the AIADMK was a spent force. He claimed of a "collusion" between the two parties, Tamil Nadu's traditional archrivals.
Two months after his TVK took over, there is "no corruption" in government offices; not even a single paisa is being taken as graft, and people were being given due respect they deserved, he said. People should boldly say they will not give bribe, he said and exhorted them to take his name if someone demanded such illegal gratification. Also, he said his party uprooted the cash-for-votes culture in the state.
The CM criticised the DMK for doing precious little over the Mekedatu dam issue and said party president M.K. Stalin was the chief minister when the Supreme Court rejected the petition.
Asserting that he would safeguard Tamil Nadu's rights, Vijay said the delimitation exercise, harming the state's interests, will not be accepted.
Vijay further said the Karur stampede has caused him immense anguish.
"We have lost children of our sisters in the 2025 Karur stampede," he said.
The CM announced to establish a memorial on behalf of his party Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) for the victims of the Karur stampede.
