Vijay celebrates TVK bypoll victory; ‘temporary win’, say Stalin, Palaniswami

TVK won without Tirumangalam Formula: Vijay

In the Dharapuram (SC) seat, TVK’s P Sathyabama polled 66,841 votes (37.02 per cent), and won by a margin of 9,471 votes against DMK’s S Suganya. AIADMK’s K Banumathi was pushed to the third with 45,280 votes (25.08 per cent).

In Madurantakam (SC) constituency, TVK’s K Maragatham Kumaravel won against DMK’s I Paranthamen by a margin of 18,427 votes.

Also read: TN bypolls: Vijay wins both seats, but gets strong anti-incumbency message

In a post on X, Chief Minister Vijay said the results had again proved TVK’s place in the public mind. He said the party had won without paying a paisa for a vote, without confining anyone in lodges, and without what he called the “Tirumangalam” or “Erode East formula”.

Vijay described the win as one secured through affection and a formula to protect democracy, and said Tamil Nadu was not a fortress of corrupt forces but a fortress of people’s power.

He thanked alliance partners Congress, VCK, MDMK and the Indian Union Muslim League, and congratulated winning candidates Maragatham Kumaravel and P Sathyabama. The victory, he said, was not his, and not TVK’s alone. He called it a verdict against slander of women, against personal attacks, and against what he termed betrayal of clean leaders and workers. “Good things will happen. Victory is certain,” his post read.

‘Betrayal secured interim victory,’ says Stalin

DMK president MK Stalin answered within minutes. His post opened with the line: “Interim victory for betrayal. The fall of false-image politics has begun.” It alluded to the switchover of both the TVK candidates to the party from the AIADMK, days after their win in the April Assembly polls.

He thanked voters of the Secular Progressive Alliance and the cadres who worked for both seats. He said the bypoll itself was forced barely five months after the Assembly election. Before the voting ink had faded, he said, two legislators resigned and joined the ruling party the next minute in what he called a “blatant murder of democracy”. The same two, he said, were then fielded by the TVK.

Also read: How a bitter water war is at the centre of Dharapuram bypoll

Stalin said Chief Minister Vijay campaigned for four days across both constituencies, drinking tea, driving a tractor, plucking drumsticks, going street to street because he believed his political future depended on these two seats.

“The Chief Minister spent four days across both constituencies. When you consider the crowds airlifted from out of town, the barricades along every road he traveled, the handouts distributed, and the affidavits from the ruling party's own candidate boasting about expenses lavished on ministers, it's clear just how desperate the TVK was for this win,” his post read.

No chief minister, he said, had campaigned like this in a bypoll. Stalin alleged misuse of official power, money and the police; model-code violations through scheme announcements after the poll date, including expanded free travel for women; and pressure on voters and government staff.

‘Public trust in DMK intact’

On the result itself, Stalin said nothing had shaken public trust in the DMK, which finished second in both seats. He argued that votes polled by every party that fought TVK were votes against the government, and that those votes together were the majority.

He asked the rulers to drop horse-trading, MLA shopping, revenge politics and reel-making, and to turn to public work. He said the DMK would continue a daily campaign to tear what he called the mask of a chief minister who, in his words, came to power on cinema glamour and is running the government as a puppet of corporate mafias.

‘TVK won by shortcut’: Palaniswami

AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami said the TVK had won the Madurantakam and Dharapuram bypolls by a “shortcut”, and that the result was a victory for official power and money politics.

He said the ruling party had used several tactics to force the win, and that the bypoll itself was the product of what he called a “murder of democracy”. He said that some parties which were with the AIADMK in Assembly election held earlier this year were not with it this time, while the ruling party fought with a multi-party alliance, deployed money power, official power and manpower, and sent all its ministers to the field.

Also read: How a bitter water war is at the centre of Dharapuram bypoll

He said Chief Minister Vijay, who had boasted that a half-hour speech was enough to finish his rivals, was forced to go street to street blowing the whistle.

“Throwing election rules to the wind and misusing the government machinery, he campaigned in both constituencies and even rode a bullock cart with a man wanted by the police,” Palaniswami said, adding that “it was through this murder of democracy that the ruling party had won”.

This, he said, was a victory for authority and for money power. By-elections generally favour the party in power; the AIADMK itself had won the Vikravandi and Nanguneri bypolls when he was chief minister, and the ruling party had won in the same way now. The election, he said, had shown the fear of political death to those who had mocked the AIADMK.

‘Temporary win’

The TVK may think it has entered the AIADMK’s fortress, but this is only an interim victory, Palaniswami said. “No one should dream of destroying the AIADMK with this temporary win. The party built and protected by MGR and Jayalalithaa is an iron fortress. The life of dharma may be seized by deceit; in the end, dharma alone will win,” he said.

“People swayed by reels under a reels government had voted for the ruling party. Even knowing that this result would not bring the AIADMK to power, the party had secured a good share of votes in both constituencies,” he added.