Tami Nadu: Court Puts Off Karur By-Poll Soon After CM Starts Campaign
Stating that he did not run away from Karur after the stampede, he accused DMK president M K Stalin of trying to blame it all on him: Reports
CHENNAI: Within hours of the Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay urging the people of Karur to give a ‘thrashing’ to the DMK in the coming by-election to their Assembly constituency, the Madras High Court retrained the Election Commission of India from notifying the polls in five constituencies, including Karur, that are lying vacant in the State.
Vijay, in his hard-hitting speech, used a colloquial Tamil term ‘veluthu vidungal’ to entreat the voters to defeat the DMK, which was the target of attack, other than the Karur police, in his address on Friday.
But within hours of Vijay launching the campaign for the anticipated polls, the High Court restrained the ECI from notifying the by-elections to Karur, Trichy East, Perundurai, Ambasamudram and Viralimalai.
All those seats were vacated by newly elected AIADMK candidates after the TVK government came to power and the Karur seat was originally won by former AIADMK minister M R Vijayabhaskar, who resigned the post and then joined the TVK with the hope of getting re-elected in a TVK ticket.
Since the AIADMK moved the court against the Speaker accepting the resignations of the AIADMK MLAs and also alleging horse-trading by the TVK, the first bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadikari and Justice G Arul Murugan passed the order restraining the notifying of the by-election till July 31.
Other than Trichy East, which was one of the two seats won by Vijay in the general elections, the representatives of the other four seats have switched over to the TVK from the AIADMK, hoping for better political prospects.
Apart from launching a broadside against the DMK, Vijay, in his speech, asked the crowd if he had ‘escaped from the scene and hid himself’ after the stampede at the TVK rally in Karur on September 27, 2025, as alleged by the DMK.
Stating that he did not run away from Karur after the stampede, he accused DMK president M K Stalin of trying to blame it all on him. He also said the DMK was getting jittery over the term ‘party funds’ and had walked out of the Assembly en masse when he started speaking on it on the floor of the House.
Next time, he would have to close the doors of the Assembly Hall before talking about such things, Vijay said.