Tamil Nadu minister KA Sengottaiyan on Friday reiterated the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam’s stand on party president and chief minister C Joseph Vijay being pitched for the prime ministerial post in 2029 by some supporters on Friday.
Who goes in and who goes out. It was our Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi, who made Thalapathy sit in the CM chair. The posters were put up by the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) functionary Sudhakar, who recently joined the Vijay-led party after leaving AIADMK. However, the Congress leaders in the state showed displeasure, threatening to resign from Vijay’s state cabinet.
“…you’ll see in 2029. So he will only hold Vijay’s hand and make him sit in the PM’s chair in 2029,” Kanimozhi said. TVK leaders backed the projection of Vijay as PM for 2029, with TVK PWD minister Aadhav Arjuna saying that the country’s top constitutional office should be held by a leader from Tamil Nadu. Congress is part of the TVK-led Tamil Nadu government with five MLAs, along with 107 of Vijay’s party, two of Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), and two of VCK / Left Factions. Tamil Nadu tourism minister S Rajesh Kumar stated that both Congress ministers will resign if TVK fails to back Gandhi in the 2029 general elections.
The Tamil Nadu minister said that Vijay’s TVK had “achieved a major victory” within two years of its formation and secured a new election symbol two months before winning the Assembly elections. The remarks came a couple of days after TVK MLA Kanimozhi Santhosh said Vijay would be the prime ministerial candidate in 2029, adding that “a big and a shocking change in Indian politics will be seen in 2029”. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Congress president B Manickam Tagore said some TVK leaders were “still operating in a fan-club mode.”
TVK leaders’ and supporters’ ‘Vijay as PM’ pitch had sparked rumours of a rift with the Congress on the issue. The Tamil Nadu minister’s statement comes days after Congress leaders from the state had threatened to resign from Vijay’s cabinet if TVK did not accept Rahul Gandhi as the next candidate for prime minister.
Sengottaiyan, responding to this, said the TVK’s leader was “very clear. Sengottaiyan said that Tamil Nadu had shown “faith” in Vijay by voting for him, while saying the chief minister would take “all necessary steps” to protect the people of the state, ANI news agency reported.
