Karur stampede: Vijay invokes Supreme Court remark over Madras High Court SIT order

At the general council meeting on Wednesday, Tamil actor and TVK chief Vijay broke his silence on the Karur stampede tragedy and launched a sharp attack on Chief Minister MK Stalin, accusing him of “peddling lies” and attempting to “score political points without humanity.”

Vijay said he had stayed silent so far to mourn the loss of lives in the Karur incident but wanted to give a “civilised reply” to remarks made about his party in the Tamil Nadu Assembly.

Referring to recent Supreme Court observations, Vijay questioned why the Madras High Court’s principal bench formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) when the plea before the Madurai bench had only sought standard operating procedures for future rallies. He said the Supreme Court itself criticised “top officers of the police department” for comments to the media that could cast doubt on the impartiality of the probe.

Quoting the Supreme Court, he asked how a single judge arrived at the conclusion to form an SIT “without any formal prayer for it,” and said the “whole country witnessed” how the state’s lawyers struggled before the court. He also asked whether the chief minister spoke “high on power.”

Vijay accused the government of deliberately restricting TVK’s public events, claiming the administration rejected spacious venues and offered constricted ones instead. He also alleged that no other political leader in the country faced such restrictions, saying he was told to “stay inside the bus” and “can’t wave outside.”

He questioned the state’s handling of the aftermath of the tragedy, pointing to the “hasty” appointment and dissolution of a single-man inquiry commission and the immediate media briefing by officials.

Further intensifying his political pitch, Vijay said the 2026 electoral contest would be “only between TVK and DMK” and asserted that the ruling party would once again have to “bow down to people’s mandate.”

“The trust people of Tamil Nadu have in this government has gone to the mud,” he said, adding that TVK’s fight would only get stronger and claiming “100 per cent victory” in the next polls.

Vijay said he was responding not out of anger, but to defend his party and supporters, calling those who died in Karur “our family members.”

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