Chennai: President of the Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK), Vijay, cancelled his scheduled campaign at the T Nagar Assembly constituency area on Monday, peeved over the police cutting down the duration for the event from four hours to one hour, while a party member raised an objection over the impending release of a Tamil film, ‘Thanga Natchathiram – TN 2026’ on April 10.
While the general secretary of the party’s election campaign management Aadhav Arjuna blamed the Chennai City Police and Commissioner Arun for reducing the time for Vijay’s campaign from his Tempo Traveler van (TN 23 D 7999) to one hour in the last minute after granting permission for four hour earlier, a TVK member said the film ‘Thanga Natchatiram – TN 2026 denigrated Vijay and his political entry.
The TVK member, M Nagamuthu, in his letter to the Chief Electoral Officer and the Central Board of Film Certification, wanted to stop the release of the film during election time and alleged that people having allegiance to the DMK were behind the production of the film featuring an actor, Natti Nataraj, having resemblances to Vijay, in the lead role.
The film denigrated Vijay through the defamatory portrayal of the lead character and even had dialogues like ‘can an actor aspire to rule the State’ that were direct attacks on the TVK chief, he said and added that the release of the film could create law and order issues in the State as it could enrage the fans of Vijay.
The teaser of the film, directed by Umapathy Ramiah, had already been released, and it portrayed Vijay’s life, both professional and personal, in a bad light.
On the reduction of campaign time for the TVK, Arjuna said his party representatives had already met the CEO and appraised the Election Commission of the way the TVK was being deprived of its right to campaign and would continue to fight to redeem its rights.
Earlier, on the day of the filing of nominations, Vijay embarked on his campaign from Perambur, which is one of the two constituencies from where he is contesting the Assembly elections, and drove through the city roads in neighbouring constituencies when he suddenly abandoned his campaign vehicle abruptly and boarded his car to reach home.
The party alleged that police had not made arrangements for the free and uninterrupted passage of his vehicle on city roads and allowed heavy traffic to flow through the route making it difficult for Vijay to carry out the campaign and hence call for the abrupt halt.
In the same fashion, the reduction of campaign hours on Monday pissed off Vijay that he refused to undertake the campaign itself, also accusing the police of refusing permission for connecting the inbuilt sound system in his campaign vehicle to external amplifiers and loudspeakers.
It is learnt that the party had decided to try other modes of communication as part of its campaign before the April 23 elections like ramping up its social media outreach and giving exclusive interviews to television channels.
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