Bereft of his usually free-flowing ‘punch dialogues’, a tired Vijayakant resorted to taking pot shots at everyone from P Chidambaram and DMK chief M Karunanidhi to the police force during a massive public meeting organised in Thiruvanmiyur on Thursday.
Singling out the Union finance minister for his campaign statement that he hadn’t ever taken bribes, the DMDK chief said, “Did the 2G scam happen without him knowing? Or did the Adarsh, Commonwealth or any other scam happen without his knowledge? Chidambaram, who is the embodiment of corruption, saying that he is not corrupt is laughable.” Not stopping there, ‘Captain’ who managed to draw over 4,000 people to the Madaveedhi street, began a very personal tirade against Karti, Chidambaram’s heir who is contesting from Sivagangai, “Karti is a strange person. He acts as if he is the PM — always appearing busy and trying to look important. He never stays in one place nor does he respond to anyone.”
He also tore into the DMK reserving some harsh comments for the patriarch: “There is trouble within the family, with one son going around like nothing happened and the other one trying to do different things. And all Kalaignar does is just sit there and nod his head.”
Delayed considerably after speaking at meetings in Kanchipuram, Villivakkam and Arumbakkam, Vijayakant could barely afford half an hour of speaking time before the “cops began to threaten him with legal action for going past the 10 pm campaign curfew.” Speaking for BJP Candidate L Ganesan, Vijayakant broke his tirade against his political opponents a few times in between to pitch for the BJP candidate and Narendra Modi’s candidature as PM.
Not recognising an important member of an allied party can be fatal in most political circles, but for Captain, its just water under the bridge. He wore a bemused look as the BJP’s State General Secretary Vanathi Srinivasan addressed the crowd, before quickly conferring with L Ganesan. When he eventually spoke, Vijayakant let on that he had forgotten who she was and needed to check with Ganesan, “There is nothing wrong in asking about things we are not aware of. There is no shame in that. Nobody can know everything. I remember she spoke at the BJP office when Rajnath Singh came here, but I couldn’t place her,” he said confidently.