The campaigns for the upcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly elections are taking place at a frenzied pace. Madurai Central constituency which has DMK’s PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan and actor-director Sundar C contesting in the AIADMK’s symbol is grabbing everyone’s attention.
BJP leader Annamalai campaigned for Sundar C and took the DMK candidate to the cleaners.
The most damaging attack at Annamalai’s Madurai Central rally came not from the BJP itself, but from PTR’s own words. Annamalai recalled PTR’s own admission where he confessed he “wanted to do much more but couldn’t”. Annamalai read PTR’s words out verbatim at the rally: “I had a deep desire to do so much for Madurai. However, I was unable to accomplish anything that I had envisioned. There may be various reasons for this. Yet, those involved in politics cannot always speak with complete candor.”
Annamalai’s rhetorical dissection of this statement was sharp. “If that is the case, then why are you serving as an MLA? Are you there merely to lament and complain? Are you there simply to whine?” The statement, he argued, was a sitting MLA publicly confessing to two terms of failure – not an admission wrung out by opponents, but a voluntary acknowledgment delivered at a press conference.
Annamalai then pivoted to the episode that cost PTR the Finance Ministry: the leaked audio tapes of 2023.Annamalai with a note of self-implicating candour of his own acknowledged at the rally that he had been the one to release the tapes. “Sir, he was indeed a competent Finance Minister. However, I did commit one minor error: I leaked an audio recording of his conversation. In that recording, he goes on speaking continuously for thirty minutes. Sir, I released only half of it – just ten minutes’ worth. There are still twenty minutes remaining that I have not released; were I to release that portion, it would trigger a massive political crisis.”
The ten-minute clip Annamalai released in April 2023 sent shockwaves through Tamil Nadu politics. In the audio, PTR was heard allegedly saying that “within the DMK, the son and the son-in-law have amassed a fortune of ₹30,000 crores” – a reference to Deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin and CM Stalin’s son-in-law V. Sabareesan. Annamalai had shared the audio on Twitter at the time, stating: “TN State Finance Minister reveals that TN CM’s son Udhayanidhi and son-in-law Sabareesan have accumulated ₹30,000 crores in a year.” PTR denied the tapes were authentic, calling them fabricated. Nevertheless, within weeks, he was transferred out of the Finance Ministry to the IT Ministry – a move widely read as political punishment.
Annamalai linked PTR’s professional trajectory directly to his governance failure in Madurai: “You yourself went to the United States, to Buffalo University, to Goldman Sachs, to Morgan Stanley, and various other places, and after driving those companies into financial ruin, you have now proceeded to bankrupt Madurai as well.” The reference to Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley was a pointed jab at PTR’s Wall Street credentials, which he has frequently cited as proof of his competence. Annamalai also circled back to PTR’s absconding associates: “Your Personal Assistant and that young man from your IT wing are all currently absconding; given this reality, on what grounds do you presume to speak of integrity?”
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