Madurantakam (Tamil Nadu), Sep 25 Tamil Nadu Minister Aadhav Arjuna on Friday attacked DMK president M K Stalin, accusing his previous government of suppressing a POCSO case involving industrialist R Veeramani, and sought an explanation over alleged political interference, financial transactions and attempts to silence the ruling party.
Addressing an election rally in Madurantakam on Friday alongside TVK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay, Arjuna questioned how an FIR registered under the POCSO Act against the industrialist on October 7, 2025, during Stalin’s tenure as CM, came to be closed without inquiry on February 20, 2026.
“Who exerted pressure to close that case? Was it political pressure or family pressure?” Arjuna asked, alleging that nearly Rs 70 crore to Rs 80 crore had changed hands over the matter.
He demanded that Stalin clarify whether top intelligence officers and the home department were aware of the closure, pointing out that under the Vijay-led administration, top police officers, including an ADGP and a Commissioner, had been removed to ensure an uncompromised probe into the child abuse allegations.
Arjuna criticised the DMK for seeking an injunction in the High Court to restrain TVK leaders — including himself and Law Minister R Nirmal Kumar — from speaking publicly on the Veeramani case.
“What kind of democracy is this? The women of Tamil Nadu are asking how many minor girls were victimised, and why the case was buried without an inquiry. Under our leader’s rule, all truths will come to light, and exemplary punishments will follow,” he declared.
Turning to other political fronts, Arjuna challenged Stalin’s social justice record, demanding to know why the DMK sat on a caste-based census for five years despite advocating it while in opposition, even as states like Bihar, Karnataka and Telangana went ahead with enumeration drives.
He added that the Vijay-led administration had already moved assembly resolutions to fulfil the 95-year-old demand.
He rejected AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami’s “horse-trading” accusation over candidate selection, counter-alleging that the AIADMK had itself poached a TVK candidate in the Edappadi constituency during the general elections.
Minister A Rajmohan, who anchored the stage proceedings, described Vijay as a transformational leader who had democratised governance by bringing ordinary citizens and “debate-club youth” into the legislature as elected lawmakers.
“Whichever party’s flag has flown over these streets until now, with Thalapathy’s feet touching this soil, only the flag of victory will fly across Maduranthakam,” Rajmohan said, before inviting CM Vijay to address the gathering.
The rally saw TVK candidate Maragatham Kumaravel accuse the DMK and the AIADMK of entering into an unholy, clandestine alliance at the grassroots level.
Kumaravel, a former Kancheepuram MP and sitting legislator who quit the AIADMK to join TVK, claimed to have visual proof of coordination between the two Dravidian rivals in the constituency.
“You thought the DMK and the AIADMK had an understanding only at the top level. But in this by-election, look closely during the morning rounds: outside the very same house, a vehicle with a DMK flag arrives, and from that very same spot, a car bearing the AIADMK flag rolls out,” she told the gathering.
Kumaravel said her political mentors were late Tamil Nadu chief ministers M G Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa, and that she left the AIADMK in anguish after its leadership struck a compromise with the DMK — a party Jayalalithaa had fought throughout her political life.
Denying strongly that any money had changed hands over her defection, she said it was TVK’s “clean-governance agenda and Vijay’s refusal to buy votes” that had drawn her to the party.
The Maduranthakam assembly by-election, scheduled for October 6, has set the stage for an intense triangular battle between the ruling TVK, the DMK and the AIADMK.
(PTI News)
