Stalin takes a dig at Vijay again: 'DMK gave real governance; TVK does reel governance'
DMK chief says his Kolathur defeat spared him the daily spectacle of TVK government's "cruelties" in the Assembly
In a speech laced with sarcasm and political criticism, DMK president MK Stalin on Saturday (September 19) thanked Kolathur voters for defeating him in the last Assembly polls. Losing his long-held seat, he said, spared him the daily spectacle of what he called the TVK government’s ‘cruelties’ inside the Assembly.
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“I thank Kolathur people. We lost… For not seeing these cruelties. I thank the Kolathur people a crore times,” Stalin declared at the party’s 'Mupperum Vizha' at Anna Arivalayam, raising both hands and bowing down. In another punch dialogue, he said, ''DMK gave real governance. TVK is running reel governance.''
Stalin lists governance failures
The remark turned his personal defeat into a broader political criticism. Stalin, who represented Kolathur for 15 years and lost it in May 2026 to TVK’s VS Babu by roughly 8,800 votes, framed the result as an unexpected relief. Had he won, he suggested, he would now be forced to watch a government he described as more interested in reels than governance.
Stalin said Tamil Nadu now has only two competitions: “One is power cuts, the other is sickle attacks.” He accused Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay’s administration of failing to maintain law and order, citing daylight killings, shootings, and what he alleged was the involvement of ruling party members in drugs and sexual violence.
Meanwhile, he said, the state endures load-shedding that leaves families “fighting without electricity in the middle of the night with their children”.
He called it an “Uthavagarai (useless) government” that has turned the state into a “hunting ground for criminals”.
He claimed the cancellation of the Parandur airport project has pushed development back 25 years. He said prices of rice, dal and sugar have risen. Promised schemes, including the Rs 2,500 women’s rights allowance, Rs 8,000 housewife coupons and motors for 25 lakh farmers, remain undelivered, he said. Existing Dravidian-model programmes, he said, are merely being renamed and relabelled.
Stalin takes aim at Vijay
Stalin mocked the CM's public style, suggesting that cinema had continued by other means. “He said he stopped acting in films, but without saying who is the director and who is the cameraman, he continues to act in front of the people. First punch dialogues, now bar shootings. Everything is reels.” The Assembly itself, he charged, has lost dignity.
He said the government diverts attention to allegations involving MISA and the Sarkaria Commission.
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Stalin was blunt on MISA. “I have no need to prove my MISA arrest to anyone. No one has the qualification to grade my sacrifice.” The record, he said, lives in Chittibabu’s prison diary and the Ismail Commission appointed by MG Ramachandran. Those who can read it, he added, should pick it up and read.
DMK looks ahead after defeat
He accused TVK of governing without a majority, relying on former DMK allies while practising “horse-trading,” and of pushing by-elections in Madurantakam and Dharapuram “before the ink on the resignation dries”.
The party, he suggested, should have been named Tamil Nadu Reels Kazhagam, not Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam. “DMK gave real governance. They are running reels governance.”
On the 2026 result, he said the vote-share gap was only about 17 lakh votes. Had the party identified its real opponent earlier, he said, the outcome might have differed.
Ideology, not victory or defeat, remains the measure, he said. The movement that has stood for 75 years, he told cadres, will return with “principal and interest”.
The coming by-elections, he added, are the first chance to teach what he called the “arrogance and insolence” a lesson.
