Vijay sought to dispel the perception that he came to hold the reins of the State government straight from the film shooting by giving details of his public life since the 1990s when his fan clubs started standing by the people.
Chennai: Launching a scathing attack on the earlier DMK government by accusing it of a wide range of corrupt practices, Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay pledged not to indulge in any form of graft in his rule, not to let others do it and not to spare those who had done it in the past besides indicating that the corruption of the previous regime would be exposed one after the other.
In his reply to the motion of thanks to the Governor’s Address in the State Assembly on Tuesday, Vijay vowed to provide a clean governance and a good governance and set out to reply to those who asked what the TVK that was just two years old could do when their members did not know anything. He sarcastically stated that they did not know how to swindle people's money or increase the rates in the tenders and pocket the extra money.
In fact he drew a long list of corrupt practices and said that TVK members did not know how to go about them. His party members knew how to hold counselling for promotions and transfers and not to extract money from the participants and they know how to create new jobs but not how to cash in on it by selling those vacancies, he said.
TVK members knew how to prevent misadministration in temples and but not how to steal money from temples, they knew only to protect the mineral wealth of the State and not to loot them and make money, they knew how to fill the government treasury with money but not how to divert the cash from the treasury to their private accounts, Vijay said.
When he mentioned about the prevalent practice of collecting ‘party funds’ and said that it would abolish it completely, the DMK members rose to their feet and started objecting to the charge demanding proof. The Speaker J C D Prabahakar’s exhortations to let the Chief Minister complete his speech fell on deaf ears as the DMK members continued to shout.
After making several attempts to quieten the agitated members and giving a clear assurance that the Leader of the Opposition would be given an opportunity to explain the party stand after the Chief Minister was through with his speech, the Speaker asked the Chief Minister urged the Chief Minister to continue when the DMK members trooped out in protest.
Vijay sought to dispel the perception that he came to hold the reins of the State government straight from the film shooting by giving details of his public life since the 1990s when his fan clubs started standing by the people. Then he explained the series of events his fan clubs had done and what the Vijay Makkal Mandram did for the community.
Dwelling on the protests that his club members organized in connection with the Eelam issue in 2008 and against the Sterlite in 2021, his fan club’s work was extended and expanded in 2009 and that they had taken a stand against the CAA in 2024.
He said his TVK was a party that had entered homes not after it was launched but even before that. Describing the Karur stampede as painful, he regretted that the incident was sought to be turned against his party.
Equating the victory of the TVK in 2026 as the triumph of the DMK in 1967 under the leadership of C N Annadurai and that of M G Ramachandran’s AIADMK in 1977, he said that party managed to forge a grand alliance and form the government after it polled 1.72 crore votes that accounted for 35 percent of the votes polled.
The Chief Minister assured that issues like power cuts would be dealt with as the government was working on it and said that his government would fight for the State rights, oppose NEET that put students from rural areas at a disadvantage.
His party was opposed to the BJP’s political ideology, he said, adding that it was nobody’s team but a team of the people, a secular team and a social justice team, he said.
After the Chief Minister’s address the House was adjourned. It would meet again for the presentation of the annual budget.
