Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) chief Vijay on Monday called off his scheduled election campaign in Chennai, citing logistical constraints imposed by local authorities.Vijay was set to campaign in the Villivakkam and T Nagar constituencies. While police had granted permission for the events, the party alleged that the time allocated to travel between the two locations was insufficient, news agency ANI reported quoting party sources.Citing these restrictions, Vijay decided to cancel the campaign for the day, adding that TVK is likely to approach the Election Commission over the issue. An official statement from the party is awaited.Tamil Nadu will vote in a single phase on April 23, with counting scheduled for May 4.The main contest is expected between the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA)—which includes Congress, DMDK and VCK—and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by AIADMK with the BJP and PMK as allies.Actor-turned-politician Vijay is set to make his electoral debut with TVK and is aiming to position the party as a third force in the state.Earlier on Saturday, Vijay launched a sharp attack on established alliances during a rally in Puducherry, calling the AINRC-BJP combine “tired” and the DMK-Congress alliance “confused”.“There are 2 alliances in Puducherry… In Tamil Nadu, DMK-Congress is a confused alliance. Similarly, here too it continues to be a confused alliance. Similarly, there is an NR Congress-BJP alliance. It is not a united alliance. It is a tired alliance. Why hasn’t this alliance granted statehood to Puducherry? If we come to power, we will do our best to secure statehood,” said Vijay.
