In Karur, Vijay returned to the wound, governance and a side of ‘kothu parotta’

Nine months after the stampede that claimed 41 lives during his election campaign, Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay returned to Karur Friday with government job orders for the victims’ families, a promise to build a memorial, and a speech that was part remembrance, part political prosecution and part stand-up performance.

If his Assembly speeches have largely been measured, administrative and restrained, the Karur address was unmistakably the old Vijay — colloquial, conversational and frequently funny, even while revisiting the darkest chapter of his political life. “No matter how high a person rises in life, there are some scars in the heart that can never be forgotten,” he began. “The deepest pain, the deepest wound for me is the Karur incident.”

Returning to the stampede

In his speech, Vijay reconstructed the events leading to the September 2025 tragedy, repeatedly questioning the role of the police. Recalling how the Perambalur police had earlier requested him not to enter the district because crowds had exceeded expectations, he asked why Karur Police had not done the same.

“Couldn’t the Karur police have alerted us too? If the police wanted, they could have cancelled that meeting… They didn’t even have to ask us.” Instead, he said, “The police themselves escorted us from the highway into that venue”. “There was a whole drama behind it,” he said. “I believed them. I trusted them completely.”

He repeatedly suggested that the tragedy was not merely an administrative failure but the consequence of deliberate political decisions, though he stopped short of directly naming individuals responsible. “Who’s responsible for all this? Who instructed all this? Who was giving all these instructions and putting all that pressure?”

The ‘no corruption’ claim

The emotional centre of the speech came not while discussing politics but while describing the children who died. “Those little children who… would smile at their mothers and say, ‘Amma, Vijay mama’. Run up to the TV screen, touch it and kiss it. We’ve lost those precious children. I’ve lost my sisters, my brothers, my family… And you mock me? You throw the blame on me?”

The audience, many of whom had remained silent through the recollection, responded with sustained applause. The speech was also about a full-scale political counterattack.

Targeting the DMK, Vijay accused the previous government of institutionalised corruption, claiming his administration had begun dismantling entrenched practices inside government offices. “What is the highlight comedy?” he asked, before launching into one of the lighter moments of the afternoon. “I only said ‘party fund.’ I never mentioned which party… The moment I said ‘party fund,’ look at them… they all took off running.”

Comparing the reaction to someone shouting, “My father’s not inside the cupboard”, without being asked, Vijay laughed: “Why are you exposing yourselves? Their antics are unbelievable. Absolutely hilarious”. The crowd responded with one of its loudest cheers.

The chief minister then made perhaps the boldest administrative claim of his tenure. “Go and visit any government office now,” he declared. “Not a single rupee in bribes… Not a single rupee in corruption. Work is getting done just like that — tick… tick… tick.”

He narrated how an elderly citizen had told him that government employees now asked people to sit down respectfully instead of sending them from one office to another. “People are breathing a huge sigh of relief,” he said.

The remarks amounted to perhaps the government’s strongest public assertion yet that corruption inside the bureaucracy has been substantially curbed within less than two months of assuming office. Vijay also urged citizens themselves to become participants in that campaign. “If anyone asks you for a bribe, tell them firmly, ‘I cannot give one’. I’m here with you… And if someone still tries to force you, tell them strongly: ‘This is our son… Our elder brother… Our Vijay. This is Vijay’s government.’”

The attack on Opposition: ‘Evil force versus spent force’

The speech mixed welfare announcements with characteristic theatrical exaggeration. Speaking about the government’s proposed “Thaymaman Gold Ring Scheme”, he contrasted his administration with the previous regime. “Unlike this evil force, we are not fake maternal uncles.” “We’re the real Thaymaman… The real one… The real, real Thaymaman.”

He repeatedly referred to the DMK as “this evil force” while calling the AIADMK “that spent force”, reviving campaign terminology familiar to TVK supporters. At several points, Vijay mocked criticism that he remained silent on political issues.

“They keep saying, ‘Open your mouth and speak, Chief Minister!’ Well… when your Chief Minister spoke, he stabbed you right in the heart, didn’t he?” he said.

He joked that before his next Assembly speech he might request the Speaker to “lock all the doors” because Opposition members run away whenever he speak.

“I spoke for just five minutes, and they started making kothu parotta out of Kolathur,” he quipped, referring to the constituency that defeated the former chief minister M K Stalin.

The speech became even more playful while attacking corruption investigations. Claiming several individuals connected to the previous regime were fleeing scrutiny, Vijay said one businessman from Karur was “running… running… running…” before turning to another political opponent. “Now the moment I say ‘abroad,’ don’t think I’m talking about Stalin sir.” He added: “I’ve always had a special affection for Stalin sir. It’s not him”. The crowd erupted. “I’m talking about the other gentleman — the one who went to Singapore for a medical check-up”.

Perhaps the most politically significant announcement came towards the end.

Declaring that future generations should remember the Karur tragedy and what he described as the “political conspiracy” behind it, Vijay announced that the TVK would construct a memorial in Karur. “The generations to come must know about it… so that no one ever even dares to think of hatching another political conspiracy.”

The chief minister also dismissed allegations that the ruling party was engineering defections from opposition parties. “We’ve smashed the culture of paying cash for votes during elections,” he said. “If we could do that during the election itself, why would we now need horse-trading, donkey-trading, camel-trading and all these bargain deals?” he said, in reply to allegations that his party is poaching AIADMK MLAs.

As the speech concluded, Vijay appealed to voters to deliver what he called a “permanent reply” to the DMK in the forthcoming by-election. “Victory… Victory… Victory is certain.”

The address, in many ways, resembled the campaign speeches that helped propel TVK from a new political experiment into the State’s ruling party. It also revealed something else. For weeks, Vijay has largely spoken through Assembly debates, government orders and policy announcements. In Karur, he returned to the language of cinema audiences and campaign grounds — mixing grief, sarcasm, humour and moral certainty ahead of the upcoming by polls in the state, including one in Karur, where the AIADMK MLA M R Vijayabaskar has recently resigned his MLA post and joined TVK.