Tamil Nadu: Political parties flay Vijay for targeting their leaders

Chennai: Opposition AIADMK and the BJP joined the ruling DMK dispensation in lashing out at actor-politician Vijay for targeting their leaders at the TVK conference in Madurai on Thursday.

Taking strong exception to the actor for addressing Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin as "uncle", State Municipal Administration Minister K N Nehru, said the actor has displayed low political standards.

"He has stooped to a low standard in addressing a tall political leader who has been in politics for four decades and is the sitting Chief Minister as 'uncle'. The DMK backed by the people will give Vijay a fitting reply in the 2026 Assembly election," Nehru told reporters.

"He was blabbering when he linked BJP to fascism. Probably, the script actor was delivering at the party conference was written by someone else," former Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan told reporters.

Initially, she thought Vijay was knowledgeable but he proved to be otherwise. He appeared to render dialogues, she said. "It was merely a one-day film show," Tamilisai said, criticising his speech at the TVK’s second conference.

While taking on all the political parties, Vijay had said, "Mr Prime Minister, I have questions for you on the fishermen issue".

He urged the Prime Minister to take steps to retrieve the Katchatheevu islet from Sri Lanka and also exempt Tamil Nadu from NEET.

Dismissing him as a political novice, BJP leader R Sarath Kumar said that though anyone, including actors, was welcome to join politics, Vijay seemed to have no inkling of what he was talking about.

"I wonder if he knows what fascism means. He is a political novice and hardly knows what to speak and how to take forward the party's ideology. He has no right to say Mr Prime Minister,” Sarath Kumar told reporters in Tuticorin.

In a similar vein, AIADMK spokesperson Vaigai Selvan said Vijay and his TVK will disappear after the 2026 Assembly poll. Former AIADMK state minister R B Udayakumar remarked it was very strange that the actor had asked whose hands the AIADMK is in.

"Why this doubt? Doesn’t he know that former Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami is in control of the AIADMK and that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had announced Palaniswami as the Chief Ministerial candidate for the 2026 poll?” Udhayakumar asked.

Speaking to reporters in Madurai, he said both the national and regional parties have clearly understood that they all have to rally behind the AIADMK in order to unseat the DMK from power.