The DMK on Thursday attacked Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay-led TVK for not naming the BJP government in its response to the arrest of Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi in Delhi.
DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran asked whether the “two prime ministerial candidates” would meet when Rahul Gandhi visits Chennai on Saturday, a dig at both Vijay and Rahul.
With it, he posted a cartoon showing a two-headed Vijay on a tightrope, holding hands with Gandhi on one side and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the other. “It is the fundamental right of every political party to meet the CEC, but this government is not allowing the Leader of the Opposition to do so. Who should be blamed? It switched to the TVK after the results. The Congress later joined the Cabinet. The party has since stayed away from INDIA bloc meetings.
The Congress contested the 2026 Assembly polls as part of the DMK-led alliance. The TVK had fallen short of the majority of 118 seats in the 234-member Assembly, prompting the Congress, with five seats, to support Vijay.
In his post on X in Tamil, Maran described the TVK-Congress partnership as an “incompatible alliance” and accused Vijay of a “double action”. The Central Chennai MP said the doubt had grown stronger after TVK’s response to Gandhi’s arrest during the protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. “This doubt gets stronger after seeing that the TVK leader did not even open his mouth on the arrest of Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi in the protest against the Chief Election Commissioner, and the anonymous objection tweet (X post) released by TVK, vague and generic, in soothing words, without even the word BJP,” he wrote. The arrest was made by the Delhi Police, which comes under the control of the BJP-led Union government,” he said. The DMK has said its workers were deeply hurt by what they consider the betrayal committed by the Congress. The DMK has, however, said it would support in Parliament the Opposition’s move seeking the removal of the CEC, despite no longer being part of the alliance.
