TVK Envisages Change in Campaign Pattern

Chennai: President of the Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK), Vijay, was gearing up to resume the State-wide campaign tour that was cut short with the stampede at Karur on September 27 by changing the pattern of the meetings and after organising a get together with the families of the 41 persons who lost their lives in the disaster, party sources said.

Starting the campaign at Trichy on September 13, Vijay could manage to visit only six districts in the three campaigns held on Saturdays till September 27 and was keen on completing the process of visiting all the districts before the electioneering for the 2026 Assembly polls picked up momentum, the sources said.

Though there had been many requests for electoral tie-ups, particularly after the Karur tragedy led to the opposition parties and media blaming him for it, Vijay was biding his time and did not want to take a decision on the alliance till January, the sources said.

While the general charge against him in social media was that he had locked himself up in his Panayur bungalow, the sources claimed that he was in touch with party honchos and devising a strategy for reviving the campaign for which a detailed itinerary was drawn up earlier.

Now, Vijay might abandon the bus that he was using for the six campaigns and changeover to holding meetings without any roadshows and he might even hire helicopters to move from one place to another in a bid to avoid the traffic snarls that his convoys had caused in the past, they said.

A 20-member committee was also being formed to guide the party in organizing the meetings and the formation of a ‘Thondar Ani’ (followers group) like other major political parties was also being envisaged, the sources said.

Since Vijay was particular that the next move on the reach out programme should be made only after meeting the families of the stampede victims, the party leaders were trying to sort it out. The party leaders claim that they were unable to organize meetings at any of the public halls within Karur.

One hall owner returned the advance collected from the TVK leaders with a regret that he was apprehensive of the damages that might be caused to the property by the party cadre, while another hall owner had outrightly said no to renting it out, the sources claimed.

As an alternative, they might scout for a venue outside Karur district and take the families there and if that did not work out, they might transport the families to Chennai for the meeting, they said.