TIRUPPUR: The TVK’s bypoll candidate, P Sathyabama, who was elected by the people of Dharapuram in the 2026 Assembly election as their MLA, has stabbed the voters in the back, and people will not forget traitors, said Leader of the Opposition Udhayanidhi Stalin in Dharapuram on Saturday.
Addressing the gathering while campaigning for the DMK’s bypoll candidate, S Suganya, the party’s youth wing secretary urged the voters not to repeat their mistake in the bypoll. If people were to vote again for Sathyabama, she would not raise her voice for them; instead, she would sing a cinema song in the Assembly, Udhayanidhi said.
He also called those parties that had broken away from the DMK alliance as “traitors” and said that the DMK would never forget them.
“Since coming to power, Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay has continuously engaged in anti-democratic activities, such as buying MLAs and splitting political parties. Earlier, he wooed parties by offering sofas. Now he has ‘bought’ seven MLAs from the AIADMK by giving them a petti (suitcase),” the former deputy CM further said. “DMK president M K Stalin criticised this as horse-trading. But they (TVK) stated that there was no evidence on it. In that case, why has the TVK fielded Sathyabama?”
On CM Vijay, the DMK leader said, “The chief minister shouted in the name of campaign in Madurantakam on Friday. Those who missed seeing it need not worry, because he will speak the same thing in the next campaign as well. For the past two years, he has been criticising the DMK like a broken tape recorder out of fear.”
“Even the Communist parties that support the government have fielded candidates against it,” he pointed out.
The state is facing acute power outages and law and order has completely broken down, the DMK leader said, adding, “People struggle without electricity in the CM’s own constituency. Power outages occur at events attended by ministers. A contest is under way in the state between power cuts and machete attacks.”