Sarkaria to ‘Karur gang’: Vijay takes on DMK over corruption, Oppn calls it ‘cinema’

DMK had been branding Chief Minister Vijay as a leader who could not, or would not, speak in the Assembly. On Monday (September 7) he answered that charge with a lengthy, document-backed speech that combined the decades-old Sarkaria Commission report with recently circulated Enforcement Directorate papers on alleged MAWS and TASMAC scams, turning the House into a platform to portray the DMK as synonymous with corruption.

The chief minister used the debate on the Police Department’s grant demands to launch one of his sharpest attacks yet on the previous DMK regime. He told the House that his government “will not touch even a single paisa of the people’s money; nor will we spare those who did.”

Last week, he had said three department files were sitting on his table and that he would open them when the time was right. The Opposition immediately challenged him to open them at once. On Monday, he offered what he called “a small sample.”

Sarkaria report takes centre stage

Vijay first turned to the decades-old Sarkaria Commission report on the Veeranam drinking-water project of the early 1970s. Quoting the Tamil translation of the report, he said a separate 80-page chapter (pages 71 to 150) recorded that M Karunanidhi’s nephew Murasoli Maran allegedly demanded a 2.5 per cent commission on a tender estimated at more than Rs 16 crore, amounting to Rs 40 lakh. One witness, Purushothaman, stated that Rs 29 lakh was paid in seven installments between 1970 and 1974 “like EMI on a loan.” Cash, buildings and goods were also allegedly given.

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The Commission concluded that the then incumbent “abused his official position as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu” and that charges had been “established by cogent, convincing and reliable evidence, oral, documentary and circumstantial.” Vijay noted that former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and minister Pon. Muthuramalingam had already placed the same report before the House in 2001. “This is the golden-jubilee achievement of a diamond-jubilee party,” he remarked.

He then moved to a roughly 100-page Enforcement Directorate document sent to the previous DMK government. Vijay stressed he was not commenting on pending court cases. The ED, he said, recorded that contractors in the Municipal Administration and Water Supply (MAWS) Department were made to pay 7.5 to 10 per cent of contract value “in the form of party fund.”

The document named “the party in power and which is running the Tamil Nadu Government” as the beneficiary and listed MK Stalin, his son Udhayanidhi Stalin, and several others as “direct beneficiaries.” Government officers collected the money, the report alleged.

ED papers widen attack on DMK

On TASMAC, Vijay quoted the ED as saying former minister Senthil Balaji “abused his official position and with dishonest intention entered into criminal conspiracy from 2021 onwards.” He repeated the phrase “dishonest intention” twice and added, “What a great achievement! That is the DMK.” An individual named Rathish was described as “a central figure operating as an unauthorised power broker” who decided transfers of DRO-level officers; the then TASMAC Managing Director, an IAS officer, allegedly acted on his instructions.

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Rathish later went to Dubai after the change of government, Vijay said. Senthil Balaji’s brother Ashok Kumar was named in connection with transport tenders, fraud and illicit financial transactions. The report stated that a financial scam running for more than a decade “had increased to multiple fold during the period of 2021 to 2025.” Political workers around Coimbatore, Karur and other districts who collected “party fund” from bar owners were referred to as the “Karur gang.” Customers were allegedly charged an extra Rs 10 to Rs 100 per bottle “in an organised manner” between 2021 and 2025.

Vijay listed the language used in the documents: “malpractice”, “fraud”, “manipulation”, “misuse”, “abusing power”, “organised crime syndicate” and “corrupt and illegal manner”, and asked whether the Opposition would now simply say, “The Supreme Court granted bail.” He pointed out that neither the High Court that rejected bail nor the Supreme Court that granted it had barred investigation, and that the Supreme Court had directed surrender of passports. “If opening just two department files looks like this, how many demons will emerge when the rest are opened?” he asked. “Is this evidence enough? Is the evidence enough?”

Vijay promises more disclosures

He inverted a DMK slogan: “Wrong happens only where the DMK is; the DMK is only where wrong happens.” Those who commit corruption, he said, are the ones who demand evidence; those who do not commit it do not even notice the charge. “We will go beneath what they have done, dig deep and bring everything up. We will shatter the fake image and fake brand with which they have been deceiving the people.” He framed the warning as “decent, affectionate, cute and lovable.” Closing with a historical lineage — 1967 Anna, 1977 MGR, 1982 NTR, 2026 Vijay — he said God, nature and the people were on his side and that “before that love, their defeat is certain.”

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Vijay reached for the corruption charge because the Opposition had boxed him in on two fronts at once: they kept calling him an inexperienced film star who refused to answer questions on the floor, and they had publicly dared him to open the three department files he had mentioned only a week earlier. By pulling out the Sarkaria Commission’s 1970s findings and pairing them with a recently circulated ED note on MAWS and TASMAC, he converted a defensive moment into an offensive one.

Instead of debating current law and order statistics or administrative teething problems, he forced the House to confront official documents that named Karunanidhi, Stalin, Udhayanidhi and Senthil Balaji. The move let him claim he was merely reading what government agencies and earlier Assemblies had already recorded, while simultaneously answering the “you never speak” taunt with a long, quote-heavy speech packed with the punch lines his critics had accused him of using.

Vijay builds corruption narrative

Political observer Dhayalan Shanmugam said Vijay's larger calculation is political branding. "TVK came to power promising a clean break from “party-fund” politics; the quickest way to make that promise stick is to paint the previous regime as institutionally corrupt across generations. Linking a fifty-year-old tender scandal to a 2021–25 “Karur gang” and “dishonest intention” narrative lets Vijay argue that corruption is not an aberration but the DMK’s operating system, he said.

“It also undercuts the party’s claim to seniority and social-justice pedigree by showing that the same family and the same methods appear in both the old commission report and the new ED papers. By promising that more files remain on his table, he keeps the threat hanging over the Opposition while positioning himself as the leader who will finally“shatter the fake image” rather than merely occupy the chair,” he added.

DMK walks out after showdown

DMK MLAs rose from their seats and began shouting slogans the moment Chief Minister Vijay started speaking. After he concluded, they staged a dharna in front of the Speaker’s chair, demanding that Leader of the Opposition Udhayanidhi Stalin be allowed to reply immediately. Marshals were expected to evict them, but Vijay himself stood up and requested that the Opposition be given time to speak. The Speaker initially agreed and the DMK members returned to their seats. Shortly afterwards, however, when some DMK legislators persisted with questions, the Speaker changed his ruling and said he could not permit them to speak. The entire DMK group then walked out of the House.

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Speaking to reporters on the Assembly premises afterwards, Udhayanidhi Stalin said Vijay had not answered a single question the Opposition had raised and had instead delivered “mere punch dialogues in cinema style.” “He levelled allegations against us in the House without any evidence, yet gave us no opportunity to explain,” the LoP said. He accused Vijay of ignoring recent issues the DMK had raised and jumping straight to the Sarkaria Commission report, claiming the same report had actually found no wrongdoing.

Udhayanidhi challenges Vijay’s claims

Questioning Vijay’s standing to speak about MISA-era cases against DMK leaders, Udhayanidhi called the actor’s entry into politics and capture of power “an accident.” He described the ED extracts read out in the House as unproven allegations and listed pending cases against the present government — an Income Tax case against Vijay for alleged concealment of income, an ED case against the Public Works Minister, and a CBI case. “We are ready to face any case against us in court. They conducted searches at places linked to KN Nehru the day before yesterday in a threatening manner,” he said.

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Udhayanidhi then levelled a fresh charge stating that Vishnu Reddy, described as a friend of the chief minister and a government advisor who was recently thanked by a minister on the floor of the House, along with his relatives Sujay Reddy and Anil Reddy, controlled the mining department. He promised to release documents. “Vijay prepared for three days like a film shoot, made notes, memorised the lines and came to the House. There is no truth in any of it. I asked 15 questions; the chief minister answered none. He has no right to place untrue information before the Assembly,” Udhayanidhi said.