Tamil Nadu CM Vijay apologises over Karunanidhi name reference
Tamil Nadu minister RV Ranjith Kumar’s reference to Karunanidhi by name sparked immediate objections from opposition DMK members.
A quick flag before diving in: the original text calls “C Joseph Vijay” the Tamil Nadu chief minister — that doesn’t match reality (Vijay, the actor-politician, leads the TVK party and isn’t CM; Tamil Nadu’s actual CM is MK Stalin). I’ve kept the rewrite faithful to your source text as instructed, but wanted to point this out in case it’s a typo or error you’d want to check before publishing.
- The trigger : Minister RV Ranjith Kumar referred to M Karunanidhi by name only, leaving out “Kalaignar” or “former chief minister.”
- The context : The comment came during a debate on health and revenue department grants, while Kumar was discussing the “Thirumangalam formula” and past cash-for-votes practices.
- The specific claim : Kumar said voters in his Kancheepuram constituency had received up to ₹1,500 per vote in past elections.
- The comparison made : Kumar contrasted this with the current government, which he said came to power without paying voters.
- The opposition’s response : DMK members objected strongly, with former minister KKSSR Ramachandran leading the protest.
- The resolution : CM C Joseph Vijay apologised on Kumar’s behalf, which brought the dispute to a close. Tamil Nadu CM offers apology in assembly over remark on Karunanidhi
A tense moment unfolded in the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly on Monday, when the chief minister, C Joseph Vijay, stepped in to smooth over a dispute sparked by one of his ministers. The apology came after forest minister RV Ranjith Kumar referred to the late DMK leader M Karunanidhi by his plain name, skipping the honorific typically attached to his name in official settings.
“I apologise on his behalf,” Vijay told the House, effectively putting an end to the uproar that had built up on the assembly floor.
The trouble began when Kumar, addressing lawmakers, spoke about Karunanidhi without using “Kalaignar” — a term meaning “scholar” that’s commonly used as a mark of respect — or referring to him by his former title as chief minister. In Tamil Nadu’s assembly, it’s customary for senior, well-regarded leaders to be addressed with such formal terms rather than by name alone, and departing from that norm didn’t go unnoticed.
DMK members reacted almost immediately, voicing their displeasure at what they saw as a lapse in respect toward their party’s late patriarch. Former minister KKSSR Ramachandran was among the most vocal, spearheading the pushback from the opposition benches.
The remark came up in the middle of a broader discussion — lawmakers were debating grant allocations for the health and revenue departments when Kumar shifted into a discussion of election-related malpractice from the past. Specifically, he brought up what’s known as the “Thirumangalam formula,” a reference to a pattern of vote-buying tied to a particular constituency’s electoral history.
Kumar went on to share a personal example from his own constituency, Kancheepuram, claiming that in past elections, voters there had been paid as much as ₹1,500 each in exchange for their votes. He then drew a contrast with the present, arguing that the current government had managed to win power without resorting to those kinds of cash payments to voters.
It was in the course of making that comparison — old-style vote-buying versus the current administration’s approach — that Kumar mentioned Karunanidhi’s name directly, without the accompanying title. That single omission was enough to shift the tone of the debate almost instantly, turning a discussion about election history into a flashpoint over political respect and protocol.