Joseph C. Vijay was the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for less than two months. There are serious allegations of MLAs being bought and sold to topple the Vijay government. Police arrested three people in this incident on Wednesday. A TVK party minister claimed that the top leader of the opposition DMK had offered up to Rs 50 crore to take their MLAs into his fold.
TVK MLA N Ilayaraja alleged that during the assembly polls, he was offered Rs 35 crore to change his position. A man named Thirunavukarachu offered him this money. However, the MLA rejected the offer and threats were made to him and his family. After that, the MLA filed a complaint with the police. Acting on the complaint, the Tamil Nadu Police arrested Thirunavukkarachu and his two accomplices, Naresh and Thiagarajan.
TVK Minister Nirmal Kumar slammed the opposition DMK over the incident. He alleged that senior DMK leader Senthil Balaji approached many TVK MLAs and offered them between Rs 10 crore and Rs 50 crore. The minister added that this was done with the consent of DMK president MK Stalin and Udayanidhi Stalin. According to the police, the person identified as Naresh had direct contact with Chantil Balaji’s brother Ashok Kumar.
The DMK denied the allegations and instead leveled the allegations against the Vijaya Dal. They filed a complaint with the governor and the anti-corruption wing and claimed that it was Vijay who lured the DMK MLA to resign. According to DMK, Vijay’s financial lure is also behind MDMK leader Vaiko’s recent defection from DMK and support for TV. They demanded an impartial investigation into the incident.
Amid political storm, Chief Minister Vijay held an important meeting with his alliance leaders in Chennai on Wednesday. The meeting was also attended by supporters of the Congress, VCK, IUML, MDMK and outside the CPI and CPI(M). In the recent elections, TVK was the largest party with 108 seats, but narrowly fell short of the 118 seats needed to form a government. So they formed the government with the help of coalition. The main objective of the meeting was to maintain the stability of the government and successfully complete the five-year term.