Vijay’s Thai Maman gold ring scheme launch stirs emotion and politics

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay on Monday (September 28) launched the Thai Maman Thanga Mothiram scheme at Government Rajaji Hospital, providing one-gram gold rings to babies born in government hospitals and primary health centres.

The scheme fulfils an Assembly election promise and draws on the traditional Tamil custom of a mother’s brother welcoming a newborn with seer. In its first phase, 1,28,499 rings have been procured, with an annual allocation of about Rs 755.83 crore. Babies born on or after June 22, 2026 are eligible, provided their families are residents of Tamil Nadu.

When politics meets family

The city received him before the hospital did. Crowds lined the road from the airport. Women and children held banners reading “Thai Maamane, welcome.” A little girl dressed as Meenakshi Amman was lifted and affectionately blessed by the chief minister as he passed. Later in the day he offered prayers at the Meenakshi Amman Temple, receiving ceremonial honours and attending the evening Sayarakshai puja. Ahead of the temple visit, the Madurai Adheenam told reporters: “After Jayalalithaa, it is Vijay.”

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Inside the hospital, the politics of a welfare scheme briefly became a family scene. Three mothers, Hindu, Muslim and Christian, were seated on the dais with their infants. The chief minister first placed gold rings on those three children, a gesture officials described as religious harmony without distinction of faith. He then moved among mothers seated below, slipping rings onto tiny fingers, lifting babies, naming some at parents’ request, signing a child’s dress, kneeling to a baby girl who smiled back, and finally posing for group photographs and selfies. When one mother broke down after he named her child, he embraced and comforted her. Hospital officials said rings would also be given to infants in the labour ward.

The most poignant reactions came from women who said they had never had a maternal uncle of their own. “I see my younger brother in the place where he stands,” a mother said through tears after the chief minister himself placed the Thai Maman seer ring on her child. Another woman, her voice breaking, said: “I have no maternal uncle. My children have no maternal uncle either. Now they have received the maternal uncle’s seer.” She described, with tears in her eyes, how the chief minister placed the gold ring on her baby, filling the role of the missing family member.

Beyond rings, restoring trust

Archana Devi of Madurai, mother of Mutthu Yazhini among the first infants to receive a ring from Vijay’s hands said: “I have no siblings. For me he stood as an elder brother, and for my child as a maternal uncle. I will never forget this in my lifetime. When the chief minister came close and put the ring on my child’s hand, tears came to my eyes. I thank him.”

Ramila Banu, mother of Mohammed Zain Shah, said ordinary families like hers could not even meet a councillor easily. “We never expected this fortune from the chief minister’s own hands. He put the ring not as a chief minister, but with the warmth of a brother. It was moving. This is a blessing for my child.”

Stella Mary said some people had insisted the scheme would never happen. “When our names were selected and the chief minister himself put the ring on my child, my joy knew no bounds. As I had requested, he also named my baby.”

Health Minister Arun Raj explained why Madurai was chosen. This, he said, is the soil of the three Sangams, the city of Goddess Meenakshi and the land where, during Chithirai, a brother still carries seer for his sister. Launching a scheme named after the maternal uncle here was therefore fitting. He added that the gold is government-guaranteed and that the rings will be given to mothers when they leave the hospital after delivery.

The larger aim, he said, is not jewellery alone but trust in public hospitals: celebrating motherhood, restoring dignity to government deliveries, and giving every family equal maternal and child care. Government deliveries, he noted, have fallen from about 62 per cent a decade ago to about 53 per cent now, even as a family spends roughly Rs 1,412 on a government delivery against nearly Rs 69,914 in a private hospital.

The tender under scrutiny

Regarding the supply of the rings, Paul J Alukkas, speaking for the Joy Alukkas associated with the Madurai event, said packing charges, making charges and wastage had not been added. “Gold and God are one,” he said. Gold is traditionally the first gift a child receives at birth, and he called that a good thing.

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Tender records show Joyalukkas emerged as the lowest bidder by quoting one paisa per ring for making, hallmarking, insurance, packing and transport, with the government paying the market price of the gold itself; Kalyan Jewellers later joined with a 70:30 first-lot split. Joy Alukkas has separately called the bid a welfare association, not a profit margin. Opposition parties have questioned the unusually low add-on quote and old advertisement links between Vijay and another Alukkas brand.

The politics of priorities

The political counter-note arrived the same day. BJP leader Tamilisai Soundararajan said children need quality milk, not gold. “Attend to needs first, Chief Minister Vijay. You are going to give gold rings. When will you fix the shortage of quality milk? Chennai needs 30 lakh litres; Aavin supplies only 14.5 lakh litres. Milk sells out before it reaches the booths. People are forced to buy private milk at a higher price. Children are saying, without saying it, that their need today is milk, not a gold ring.”

While Chief Minister Vijay spent Monday in Madurai launching the gold-ring scheme and moving through a 44-km public welcome, AMMK general secretary TTV Dhinakaran asked why he would not travel one hour more to Kadamalaikundu, where hill farmers from nine panchayats are in their third day of protest against a Supreme Court eviction order covering 4,601 families and 118 government employees across more than 98 forest villages. Dhinakaran said the chief minister’s claim that Tamil Nadu is his home and eight crore Tamils are his own sat poorly with a decision to skip people fighting for land, house and livelihood.

From crowds to temple

From the airport to Rajaji Hospital, then on to the renovated Gandhi Museum and the Meenakshi Amman Temple, Chief Minister Vijay’s Madurai movement stretched about 44 km through the city, the bypass and the Vaigai bank. Crowds stood in the daylight heat for hours. Officials later said at least ten people fainted while waiting; police called ambulances and sent them to Government Rajaji Hospital. Amid the crowd, Katturaja, 55, and Vignesh, 29, suffered minor injuries and were taken to hospital.

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That long public welcome framed the quieter moment at the temple. In the evening, after ceremonial honours at the eastern entrance, Vijay was received by Rukmani Palanivel Rajan, chairperson of the Meenakshi Amman Temple trustee committee and mother of former minister Palanivel Thiagarajan. She draped a gold chain around the chief minister. He returned the gesture, then bent and touched her feet for her blessing. Political circles noted the emotion of the scene: two camps, one old Madurai family, and a public act of respect inside the temple precinct.