CM Vijay announces memorial for Karur stampede victims, questions police role
Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) leader and Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay has announced that his party will build a memorial for those killed in a stampede during his election campaign in Karur on September 27, 2025. Speaking at a public meeting on the outskirts of Karur on Friday, July 10, 2026, Vijay stated that the tragedy could have been prevented if the police had informed him about the large crowd gathered at Velusamypuram.
During his election campaign, Vijay said that police had alerted him to a huge crowd at Perambalur while he was in Ariyalur, leading him to cancel that meeting for safety reasons. He contrasted this with the Karur incident, where police escorted him to the venue but did not inform him of the crowd size or potential danger. "The police had the power to cancel meetings if they sensed something could go wrong," Vijay said, questioning who instructed them not to do so.
The Chief Minister expressed deep sorrow over the loss of lives, including children and women, and denied allegations that he fled the venue without meeting the victims. He accused the police of failing to deploy sufficient personnel for the crowd size. The Opposition has criticized his government as a 'sofa model' and 'washing machine model', to which Vijay responded that the DMK had a 'vending machine' for political business, and his party would not engage in backdoor politics.
In an indirect attack on the DMK and former Minister V. Senthilbalaji, Vijay alleged that the party had swindled public money through dubious means, claiming that the owner of a Karur company was on the run and another former Minister had fled to Singapore. He also accused the DMK and AIADMK, without naming them, of being "evil force" and "depleted force" respectively, and challenged them to prove they had no connection.
Vijay claimed that his government had uncovered several irregularities and malpractices from the previous government, involving lakhs and crores of rupees. He asserted that corruption had been eradicated from government offices, urging citizens not to pay bribes. On the Mekedatu dam issue, he criticized the previous DMK government for failing to argue the case properly in the Supreme Court, leading to a dismissal of the state's petition against Karnataka's detailed project report. His government had passed a resolution opposing the dam, he said.
