Chennai, May 18: Senior DMK leader and Tiruchendur MLA Anitha Radhakrishnan launched a sharp attack on Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Joseph Vijay and his TVK-led coalition government on monday, claiming the administration would not last six months. He insisted that DMK boss MK Stalin – chief minister before Vijay and his TVK’s blockbuster win in the April election – would return soon.
At a party event in southern Tamil Nadu, Radhakrishnan also challenged Aadhav Arjuna – a senior leader from the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam – who won the Villivakkam seat – to resign from there and contest against him in Tiruchendur.
“Only four more months this government will survive. There is one person called Aadhav Arjuna. If you have guts, resign your MLA position, I will also do it. Let’s face off in Tiruchendur. This is our town. We will defeat anyone,” Radhakrishnan declared.
The Tiruchendur seat has been Radhakrishnan’s stronghold for 25 years; he first won it in 2001 for the DMK’s great Dravidian rival, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam before retaining it for the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in 2009.
Radhakrishnan also defended Stalin after he lost his stronghold – Kolathur – to VS Babu, a disgruntled ex-DMK leader who joined Vijay’s TVK and took down his former boss. “We want our ‘thalaivar‘ (leader) MK Stalin to contest in Trichy. Stalin changed Kolathur as Singapore,” Radhakrishnan said before taking a swipe at the voters, calling them “worthless”.
‘Thalaivar‘ is the next chief minister. After four or six months our leader will become chief minister,” he said.
Neither Vijay’s office nor TVK nor Arjuna have responded to the remarks so far.
The comments come amid an increasingly bitter political battle between the TVK and DMK.
Vijay’s election win was one of the biggest political upsets in Tamil Nadu in decades. Not only did the TVK sweep 108 of the state’s 234 seats – falling just 10 short of outright majority – but it stopped 62 years of the DMK and AIADMK trading wins.
The 10-seat gap was eventually bridged – after a week of more drama – with seats from the Congress, two Left parties, and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi. But crucially all three of these parties – seen as critical allies – were formerly with the DMK.
With the majorit mark crossed, Vijay was sworn in as chief minister to complete a cinema-to-politics arc and then sailed through a trust vote – 144 votes to 22 – in a second round of drama. The second round was headlined by talk rifts in the AIADMK, after a section of its MLAs defied the party whip to vote in favour of Vijay and the TVK..
Since then the TVK leader has faced sustained attacks from the DMK over governance, appointments, and administrative decisions. The ruling party, however, has dismissed repeated opposition claims that its government is unstable.
