CHENNAI: Chief Minister and TVK president C Joseph Vijay on Friday said the party’s victories in the Madurantakam and Dharapuram Assembly bypolls have reaffirmed its position as a major political force in Tamil Nadu, claiming that the results reflected public support for its people-centric politics and rejection of money power.
In a statement thanking voters and party workers on social media, Vijay said the victories were secured without distributing money to voters or resorting to practices such as confining voters, and said the outcome is a triumph of democracy over money power.
“This is a victory achieved by demolishing the formula of money power in a manner unprecedented in the history of Tamil Nadu bypolls,” he said.
Referring to the criticism regarding his campaigning for two days in each constituency, the TVK chief said the results have answered those who had mocked his campaign schedule. He also alleged that the DMK government had not allowed him to campaign across Tamil Nadu during the Assembly elections held in April.
“Had the then ‘evil force’ DMK allowed us to campaign across Tamil Nadu during the Assembly elections, people could judge what would have happened,” he said.
Describing the victories as a response to personal attacks and derogatory remarks against women, Vijay said the outcome was not merely a victory for him or the TVK, but one for political and personal decorum. “Above all, this is a victory for the people and the voters,” he said.
Speaking to reporters at the secretariat, Minister Aadhav Arjuna appealed to all the AIADMK grassroots workers to join the TVK as it is the party that carries the legacy of former chief ministers MGR and J Jayalalithaa.
He took a dig at AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami by ‘thanking’ him for the party’s current plight, which had ultimately made things easy for the TVK to sail through the bypolls.
“As we could see, AIADMK workers are frustrated and have lost confidence in the leadership. They see our leader (Vijay) as Puratchi Thalaivar MGR and Amma (J Jayalalithaa). We welcome all the grassroots-level workers – from municipal, union, and branch-level secretaries and functionaries – to join the TVK,” he said.
Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president Manickam Tagore, in a social media post, termed the bypoll victories as a public endorsement of CM Vijay’s four-month-old government. He said the DMK and the AIADMK’s defamatory campaigns against the TVK government have been rejected by voters. Tagore also praised Vijay as “the bypoll in Tamil Nadu was the first in 25 years conducted without money distributed to voters”.
VCK president Thol Thirumavalavan said the bypoll victory reflected public endorsement of the TVK-led alliance.