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The Kerala Story Got Real: Kumbh Mela Fame Monalisa Found Underage, POCSO Case Filed, Wedding Was Backed By CPI(M) Leaders

By
The Commune
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Monalisa Bhosle, a young tribal girl from Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone district, rose to fame during the 2025 Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, where she went viral on social media while selling fancy ornaments.

On 11 March 2026, Monalisa and her boyfriend Farman Khan approached the Thampanoor police station in Thiruvananthapuram, claiming that Monalisa’s father was trying to forcibly take her back to Madhya Pradesh against her will. The couple also claimed both were adults. The two subsequently got married at a temple in Arumanoor, on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram (also reported as Poovar temple).

Three prominent CPI(M) leaders attended the wedding and publicly celebrated it as a symbol of social harmony and communal amity:

  • V. Sivankutty – Kerala Cabinet Minister (Education)
  • M.V. Govindan – CPI(M) State Secretary
  • A.A. Rahim – CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP

CPI(M) leaders framed the inter-faith marriage as the “Real Kerala Story” as a counter to the Bollywood film The Kerala Story.

The state police even defended the wedding and that the girl was a major by stating that she had an Aadhar card that proved so.

Monalisa’s father had filed a complaint alleging kidnapping, and a case under BNS Section 137(2) (kidnapping) was already registered based on his complaint. His claims that his daughter was a minor were dismissed at the time, as the couple produced an Aadhaar card showing her date of birth as 1 January 2008 – which would make her 18 at the time of marriage.

Farman Khan, at a press conference, specifically cited K-SMART to assert that the marriage was legally registered: “She is an adult and the marriage was legally registered through the Kerala government’s K-SMART app”. The marriage certificate was generated within 30 minutes of document submission.

Kerala LSGD officials defended the system, stating that “under-age marriage cannot be registered under this system” as all age and residence proofs are verified before issuance.

Social activist Adv. Pritham Dubey from Uttar Pradesh brought the matter before the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST). The NCST conducted an investigation and obtained hospital birth records from Government Medical Hospital, Maheshwar, which showed Monalisa’s actual date of birth as 30 December 2009. This made her 16 years, 2 months, and 12 days old at the time of her marriage – well below the legal marriage age of 18.

The Aadhaar card used to register the marriage was alleged to be a forged document issued in the name of Maheshwar Municipality with a fabricated date of birth.

Following the NCST findings, Madhya Pradesh Police registered a POCSO case against Farman Khan at Maheshwar Police Station, Khargone district. The NCST recommended adding multiple serious sections to the case, including:

  • Sections 87, 83, 96, 64, 81, 56 of BNS covering rape, procuration of a child, kidnapping, fraudulent marriage ceremonies, and cohabitation by deceit
  • Sections 17 & 18 of POCSO Act abetment and attempt to commit sexual offences against children
  • Provisions under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989
  • The MP Freedom of Religion Act, 2021
  • The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006

The NCST also directed the DGPs of both Kerala and Madhya Pradesh to appear before it.

BJP Kerala state secretary S. Suresh demanded that Sivankutty, Govindan, and Rahim be charged under the SC/ST Act and Criminal Conspiracy. The three leaders facilitated the marriage of a minor for political optics ahead of the Kerala Assembly Elections 2026.

CPI(M) leaders denied organising the wedding, with Rahim stating they had arrived at the venue only after seeing media reports portraying it as a case of family obstruction to an inter-faith couple. Govindan maintained that “as per records produced by the girl’s father himself, the girl was not a minor”. Kerala Police also continued to defend the Aadhaar card as genuine.

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Udhayanidhi Exalts DMK Min Sivasankar Who Demeaned Lord Rama

By
The Commune
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Udhayanidhi Exalts DMK Min Sivasankar Who Demeaned Lord Rama

DMK scion Udhayanidhi Stalin campaigned in Kunnam constituency in support of DMK candidate and minister Sivasankar, urging voters to ensure a decisive victory for the party in the upcoming Assembly elections.

He described Sivasankar as an active and hardworking representative who had contributed to both governance and party work. He highlighted the candidate’s tenure as Transport Minister, stating that efforts had been made to replace old buses with new and modern ones across Tamil Nadu, including the introduction of air-conditioned services and expansion of connectivity to rural areas.

Listing constituency-specific projects, Udhayanidhi Stalin said that several infrastructure works had been carried out over the past five years.

He went on to say, “Our leader (Stalin) has entrusted you with a truly exceptional, indeed, a winning candidate. When our Thalaivar calls upon him our brother Sivasankar, how does he address him? He addresses him, quite simply, as “The Lion of Ariyalur.”

What Sivasankar Said

It is noteworthy that the same Sivasankar who DMK scion Udhayanidhi Stalin is exalting today had one day questioned the existence of Lord Rama.

In August 2024, DMK Transport Minister S. S. Sivasankar, while addressing an event in Ariyalur to mark the birth anniversary of Chola emperor Rajendra Chola, spoke about the importance of commemorating historical figures with documented evidence.

He said, “We must celebrate the birthday anniversary of our great ruler Rajendra Chola, who made our land proud. We should celebrate his birthday; otherwise, people may be compelled to celebrate something that has no connection or evidence to them.”

Referring to historical records, he added, “To show that Rajendra Chola lives on, there are ponds constructed by him, temples built by him, and his name is mentioned in scripts, sculptures, and other artefacts. We have history and evidence for it, but there is no evidence or historical record of Lord Ram’s existence. They call him (Lord Rama) an avatar. An avatar can’t be born. It is being done to manipulate us, hide our history, and present another history as superior.”

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Class 8 Civics Lessons For MIT Sloan PhD, Lehmann Bros Fame, 4th-Gen Dynast ‘Pannaiyaar’ PTR

By
The Commune
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ptr madurai MIT sloan buffalo dmk

PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan, the incumbent MLA of Madurai Central constituency has attracted the media limelight for all the wrong reasons, plainly because of his arrogance.

Madurai Ground Reality Flagged

A few days ago, PTR claimed he wanted to do a lot for his constituency but couldn’t do it and that was because of political reasons. Following this, his opponent and several news reports pointed out to him the sad state of affairs in his constituency – plethora of civic issues given that Madurai has been ranked the dirtiest city of the country.

PTR Responds With ‘Federalism’ Argument

When this fact was pointed out, PTR chose to target and discredit journalists reporting unfavourable ground sentiment. He came up with an eight-point lecture heavy on constitutional theory, light on accountability, that a PhD from MIT Sloan, a Lehmann Brothers alumnus, a fourth-generation political dynast, and a man who served as Tamil Nadu’s Finance Minister probably did not need to deliver to a working journalist.

The lecture, however, inadvertently revealed something more interesting than PTR intended.

What Are The Responsibilities?

PTR’s response reduced the concerns of Madurai’s citizens into a jurisdictional flowchart. Roads? That’s the Corporation. The Corporation? That’s the Local Body. The Local Body? Not my department. It is a response that would make a bureaucrat proud and a voter furious.

  • Ward Councillors bear primary responsibility for garbage collection, street cleaning, and local roads.
  • The Mayor holds city-wide sanitation and waste system oversight.
  • The Commissioner (an IAS officer appointed under State government controls) handles execution, staff, and contracts
  • MLAs carry responsibility for funding, escalation, and policy push.
  • Ministers and Departments control budget allocation and oversight of local bodies.

PTR’s position as a minister explicitly grants him “control over local bodies.” He is not a bystander to Madurai Corporation’s failures. He is, constitutionally and administratively, part of the oversight chain. The federalism argument he deploys against journalists is the same one he conveniently discards when claiming credit for the 6th State Finance Commission’s role in doubling Corporation revenues.

Federalism vs Ground Reality

PTR’s federalism argument rests on the 74th Constitutional Amendment (1992), which assigned 18 civic functions to Urban Local Bodies under Article 243W and the 12th Schedule. He is textually correct. But Tamil Nadu’s ground reality exposes the argument as selective. The same amendment’s Article 243X grants municipalities taxation powers; Article 243Y mandates State Finance Commissions to ensure fiscal devolution. Tamil Nadu constitutes its SFCs and then implements their recommendations partially, leaving corporations executing state decisions with state money, their grants predominantly tied to salaries and power bills rather than infrastructure priorities. That is not devolution. That is supervised administration with a constitutional letterhead.

Water supply and sewerage which are core civic functions remain with TWAD, a state parastatal, not the Corporation. The Municipal Commissioner answers to the state, not the Mayor. Urban planning sits outside ULB control entirely. PTR’s own state government holds the money, the commissioner, and the parastatals. Then it points at the Mayor when cities rot.

In perhaps the most unintentionally revealing moment of his response, PTR asked whether it would be an “abuse of power” to direct the Corporation to prioritise P.T. Rajan Road – the road named after his grandfather. The question answered itself. A road bearing a family name in a constituency a family has represented across generations, in a city the family calls home, remains in a state of disrepair and the MLA’s response is to cite conflict-of-interest as the reason he cannot intervene. The dynasty is invoked for prestige; accountability for the dynasty’s own street is outsourced to the Corporation.

Madurai’s Dirtiest Secret

Federalism is a framework for cooperation, not a ladder for escaping blame. The 74th Amendment did not create islands of isolated responsibility – it created a layered system where Ward Councillors, the Mayor, the Commissioner, the MLA, the Minister, and the State Government are all expected to function as interlocking gears. When a road caves in or garbage rots on a pavement, no single gear failed in isolation. The system failed together.

An MLA who genuinely understands federalism does not look at a pile of uncollected garbage on a Madurai street and say “not my job.” He picks up the phone. He escalates to the Commissioner. He flags it to the Minister of Municipal Administration. He uses his legislative platform. He withholds his party’s goodwill from a Corporation that is failing. That is what federalism in practice looks like – not a flowchart printed to hand to a journalist.

If Madurai has been ranked the dirtiest city in India, that verdict did not land on the Ward Councillor’s desk alone. It landed on everyone in the oversight chain and PTR, as both the sitting MLA and a former Finance Minister who controlled devolution to Urban Local Bodies, sits squarely within that chain. A city’s filth is not a jurisdictional question. It is a political one.

Case Study: Jaihindpuram Road Issue

In Jaihindpuram, Madurai, a 2.93 km stretch remained an unpaved mud road for nearly three years disrupting shopkeepers, pedestrians, schoolchildren, and daily commuters. The Corporation’s explanation: underground pipe laying by TWAD, a state parastatal outside local body control.

On 31 May 2025, CM Stalin conducted a roadshow through Madurai ahead of the DMK General Council meeting. The roadshow passed through Jaihindpuram. The road that had resisted repair for three years was laid overnight. The excuse that had served three years did not survive one political itinerary. This is not local body failure. It is the state’s infrastructure fragmentation made visible — and then made invisible, on demand.

PTR asked why he received no credit for steps taken as Finance Minister that helped Madurai Corporation double its annual revenues. It is a fair question, but it cuts both ways. If he claims credit for revenue doubling, he must also answer why a Corporation flush with doubled revenues still cannot maintain basic roads and sanitation in the city his family has politically represented for generations.

MLA Funds and Civic Responsibility

There is one final contradiction PTR’s lecture cannot survive. His own Ward 56 constituency report lists 14 road and road repair works funded through his MLA Constituency Development Scheme. His Madurai Central report further lists BT Roads laid under MLACDS funds from 2016 to 2025.

Source: PTR X handle

Roads are a 12th Schedule function – local body territory by his own argument. Yet he spent his legislator’s fund on them and listed them as achievements. The constitutional separation he invokes to avoid blame was never observed when building a record. Why does an MLA fund roads at all? Because Tamil Nadu’s ULBs are starved of untied funds – a structural condition the state government, which PTR served as Finance Minister, created and perpetuated. The MLACDS fills the gap the state engineered. The MLA takes the credit. When roads fail, the Corporation takes the blame.

Accountability Beyond Structure

A man who studied public finance at MIT Sloan, who managed risk at Lehmann Brothers before its spectacular collapse, and who presented multiple state budgets to the Tamil Nadu Assembly knows precisely how institutional responsibility is structured. He does not need a civics lesson. He needs to stop pretending that he does not already know the answer to every question he is posing.

The same system that allows an MLA to claim credit for roads also allows him to deny responsibility for them. That contradiction is not administrative – it is political.

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DMK Minister & Madurai MLA PTR Claim ‘Countless Works’ Done In Constituency, His Own Data Shows A Different Reality

By
The Commune
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PTR Says ‘Countless Works’ — His Own Data Shows a Different Reality

On 12 April 2026, with the Madurai Central election weeks away and opponent Sundar C drawing growing crowds, DMK’s PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan took to his X handle with a campaign broadside he titled “A Lesson for the ‘Cinema Sangi’: Chapter 2.”

Focused on Ward 21 in the Aruldaspuram area of his constituency, the post listed what he described as proof of decade-long development: 34 roads built, smart classrooms at Thiru.Vi.Ka Corporation School, a breakfast scheme extended to Class 8 students at Vilangudi Panchayat Union Middle School since September 2023, a community hall at Kalathupottal, an upgraded Primary Health Centre with a scanning facility, and “countless other works.” He signed off with a defiant flourish: “I am a man from Madurai – who are you?”

The document PTR attached to the post, the official MLACD (MLA Constituency Development) data for Ward 21, was meant to settle the debate. Instead, it quietly opened one.

What the Document Actually Shows

The MLACD fund data for Ward 21, covering 2016 to 2025, lists 24 projects with a total outlay of ₹250.90 lakh. PTR’s post claims “34 roads”, a figure that we are unable to independently verify within the MLACD data alone, as road works may also have been executed under other scheme heads.

What the MLACD record does confirm is that 16 of those 24 projects are BT (bituminous tar) road-laying works – straightforward resurfacing jobs ranging from ₹5 lakh to ₹20 lakh each. The community hall at Kalathupottal (₹25 lakh, 2024-25) and an ICDS building (₹11 lakh, 2021-22) are the only non-road, non-borewell entries across nine years of MLACD work in this ward.

Crucially, there is not a single drainage project, waste management initiative, or public toilet in the entire 24-entry MLACD record for Ward 21.

The distribution of works over time is equally telling. 21 of the 24 MLACD projects fall in the 2016-2021 period – when PTR was an MLA but in the opposition. Only three are recorded after 2021, when he became a ruling-party minister: one borewell (2023-24), the Kalathupottal community hall (2024-25), and the ICDS building at the cusp of the DMK government’s arrival (2021-22). Whether this reflects scheme cycles or a genuine slowdown in ward-level investment during the ruling years is a question the data alone cannot fully answer – but the pattern is stark: more ward-level work was recorded when PTR had less power than when he had the most.

India’s Dirtiest City. His Constituency. His Promise.

PTR once promised, during his 2021 campaign, to make Madurai “like Singapore.” In November 2025, the Central Government’s Swachh Survekshan 2025 report delivered its verdict: Madurai ranked as the dirtiest city in India among all cities with populations over ten lakh, scoring just 4,823 out of 12,500, finishing last among 40 comparable cities.

The sub-scores detail the extent of the collapse. Waste processing: 4%. That means 96 paise of every rupee’s worth of waste generated in the city goes unprocessed. Public toilet cleanliness: 3%. Door-to-door waste collection: 37% of households. This is not a city on its way to Singapore. This is a city that finished below every other major Indian city in every measurable category of cleanliness on the watch of the MLA who represented its central constituency and served as the state’s Finance Minister.

The ward-level complaint data mirrors this city-wide failure precisely. Of the 165 basic-needs petitions resolved in Ward 21 by PTR’s office, 55 were about underground drainage, 43 about streetlights, 29 about garbage, and 9 about drinking water – the four most elementary municipal services together accounting for 82% of all basic-needs petitions filed in the ward in 2026. The problems citizens complained about most were the ones entirely absent from PTR’s MLACD investment record.

Source: PTR X handle

Zero drainage projects. Zero waste management. Zero public toilets.

Source: PTR X handle
26 Health Cards. 3,682 Beneficiaries. For a Constituency of Lakhs.

PTR’s document lists welfare beneficiaries for Ward 21 over the period 2021–2026. The Chief Minister’s Health Insurance cards distributed in Ward 21 across five years: 26. For a ward estimated at approximately 12,000 residents, that is a reach of under 0.3%. Even accounting for eligibility criteria, these are means-tested schemes and not universally applicable, the scale remains strikingly modest relative to the scale of need.

Source: PTR X handle

PTR’s document records 206 direct welfare beneficiaries in Ward 21 alone covering old-age pension, widow assistance, disability benefits, and similar schemes over the period 2021 to 2026, with a total disbursement of ₹29.42 lakh.

Source: PTR X handle

Across the entire Madurai Central constituency, the document records 1,405 Chief Minister’s Health Insurance cards registered at camp level with Ward 21 accounting for just 26 of those in a ward that had about 12000 people. Even accounting for eligibility criteria, the scale remains too modest for a constituency represented by a sitting Cabinet minister over two terms.

Sanitiser as Alcohol. ₹48,000 Crore Revenue. ₹20 Crore for De-addiction.

Beyond the ward data lies a more disturbing data point – one that PTR, as the man who read the state’s budget, cannot claim ignorance of. In 2025, it was reported that in Madurai district, people were drinking hand sanitiser because they could not afford TASMAC liquor prices. In PTR’s city. In the constituency he calls home.

TASMAC recorded ₹48,000 crore in revenue in the same period – a record high. The state’s de-addiction budget: ₹20 crore. The ratio 2,400:1 is a policy choice, not an oversight. PTR was the Finance Minister who signed off on these numbers. He knew the TASMAC revenue. He knew the de-addiction allocation. He knew the gap. The question is not whether he was aware. The question is what he did about it.

The Minister Who Said He Could Not Do What He Envisioned

The sharpest challenge to PTR’s campaign document may not come from his opponents, but from his own recorded words. During the election campaign, PTR himself had stated publicly: “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.”

PTR has also admitted in the Tamil Nadu Assembly that his IT department had “no funds, no authority.” He was transferred out of the Finance Ministry, widely seen as a political demotion, following a leaked audio tape in which he was heard saying, among other things, that “within the DMK, the son and son-in-law have amassed ₹30,000 crore.” PTR denied the tape was authentic.

What the Ward 21 data ultimately reflects is a decade of incremental works, dominated by road relaying, alongside persistent gaps in basic civic infrastructure: no drainage investment, no public toilets, and a city that, by the Central Government’s own Swachh Survekshan ranking, became India’s dirtiest under his watch. The campaign document was meant as a lesson. The numbers embedded within it may teach a different one.

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“If You Did Nothing, Why Stay MLA?”: Annamalai Tears Into PTR Over His Own Admission

By
The Commune
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Annamalai Takes A Jibe At DMK Min PTR Sycophantic Praise Of Udhayanidhi Stalin

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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“₹100 Crore Scam, One Arrested, One Missing And He Lectures On Integrity”: Annamalai’s Blistering Attack On PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan’s Inner Circle

By
The Commune
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“₹100 Crore Scam, One Arrested, One Missing”: Annamalai’s Blistering Attack On PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan's Inner Circle

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.

Annamalai campaigned for Sundar C and exposed PTR over and over again in his 30-minute speech.

When K. Annamalai held up his second photograph at the Madurai Central rally, he was careful to pre-empt the obvious rebuttal. “Because if I were to share this one, you might accuse me of having morphed it,” he told the crowd. The photograph he was holding up showed two individuals alongside PTR: a man named Ilakkuvan, and Jai Balaji – both of whom, Annamalai alleged, had used their proximity to PTR to loot crores of rupees from government tenders.

Jai Balaji, according to Annamalai, served as PTR’s personal assistant for a “considerable period” before being dismissed. “Jai Balaji was dismissed from his position for looting crores of rupees — specifically, for using PTR’s name to commit fraud in government tenders.” This is not merely a campaign allegation: in February 2026, news reports confirmed that PTR’s former assistant Jai Balaji and his wife Kalavathi were arrested by Madurai Central Crime Branch police on fraud charges. Multiple complainants had alleged that Jai Balaji collected money from contractors by promising government contracts using PTR’s name and from the public by promising land allotments and then defrauded them. Reports indicate the fraud ran to approximately ₹100 crore.

The second individual in the photograph, Ilakkuvan, is the more alarming case. Annamalai alleged that Ilakkuvan “engaged in the very same illicit activities” as Jai Balaji, and has since “fled the country and is no longer in India.” Annamalai said he had personally inquired with police contacts about Ilakkuvan’s whereabouts and had received no satisfactory answer. He turned the question directly to PTR at the rally: “Mr. PTR, please answer: Where did Ilakkuvan go? Where did Jai Balaji go? First, clean up the mess within your own household; only then should you enter the political arena to speak about Brother Sundar C or anyone else.”

The broader thrust of the attack was PTR’s public persona as an incorruptible technocrat – a Harvard and Oxford-educated former Lehmann Brothers banker who presents himself as a cut above regular politicians. PTR has repeatedly described himself as “educated” and above the rough-and-tumble of ordinary party politics. Annamalai used the Ilakkuvan-Jai Balaji association to puncture this image directly. “Yet, despite keeping associates like these two by his side, this man has the audacity to lecture us about integrity and purity,” he said.

The controversy adds to PTR’s already turbulent political record. In 2023, leaked audio tapes of PTR allegedly criticising the inner workings of the DMK government, describing it as unsustainable due to the outsized influence of CM Stalin’s son and son-in-law, cost him the Finance Ministry portfolio. PTR denied the tapes were authentic, calling them fabricated by a “blackmail gang.” He was reassigned to the IT Ministry, a portfolio seen as a political demotion.

Annamalai also raised PTR’s hereditary trusteeship of the Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple as a further indictment of his tenure. “Is it not your family that holds the hereditary trusteeship? What is he asking for? He asks, as a devout worshipper, that those visiting the temple be provided with restrooms and toilets, and that the access roads be kept clean. Yet, what is the response? ‘Do you know who I am? Do you know who my father was?'” The demand for basic sanitation infrastructure at one of India’s most-visited temples, unmet across two terms, was presented as the most damning measure of PTR’s governance – not corruption, but simple, inexcusable neglect.

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“State Never Even Asked For Madurai Metro”: Annamalai Exposes DMK’s Lies

By
The Commune
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“State Never Even Asked For Madurai Metro”: Annamalai Exposes DMK's Lies

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 exposed the Stalin government over their falsities around the Madurai Metro.  Annamalai held up a government document and read from it live. “Look at this,” he told the crowd, brandishing what he described as a letter from the Central Government on the Madurai Metro project. “For all these days, they have been going around spreading nothing but lies. The truth of the matter is that the State Government has never even submitted a formal request asking for a Metro rail system for Madurai.”

The charge cuts to the heart of a live controversy. The DMK government, led by Chief Minister MK Stalin, had announced Metro projects for Madurai and Coimbatore as a flagship urban development promise after coming to power in 2021. A Detailed Feasibility Report was submitted by Balaji Railroad Systems (BARSYL) to Chennai Metro Rail Ltd. (CMRL) in November 2022, proposing a 31 km metro line between Thirumangalam and Othakadai with 20 stations. A Detailed Project Report (DPR) was formally submitted to the Central Government only in December 2024.

But the DPR, when it arrived, was fatally flawed. On 14 November 2025, the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs returned the DPRs for both Madurai and Coimbatore Metro projects citing that both cities did not meet the mandatory population threshold of 20 lakh (2 million) as per the 2011 Census. The Central Government’s letter, which Annamalai read aloud at the rally, stated: “As regards the Madurai Metro Rail project, it is stated that a proposal has been examined. As per CMP of the project duly approved by the State Government, it has been mentioned that the current ridership is justified for BRTS.” In other words, Annamalai argued, the State Government itself had stated in its own submission that Madurai’s ridership figures justified only a Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS), not a Metro.

Annamalai was scathing: “The State Government requested a Metro system exclusively for Coimbatore. In the letter submitted regarding Coimbatore, they merely included a token request, purely for the sake of formality, asking for a Metro system for Madurai as well.” He pointed to Paragraph 5.2.5 of the state’s own submission, where the government explicitly stated a Metro for Madurai was not feasible and requested a BRTS, a dedicated bus corridor system already operational in Ahmedabad, instead.

The population undercount is a key technical embarrassment. Annamalai revealed that former Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami, upon reviewing the DPR post-rejection, found the population figures listed for Madurai were only 1.5 million, when the city’s actual population exceeds 2 million. “He sent a letter stating: ‘Brother, please revise and resubmit the project report. For Madurai, the population count must be increased — it needs to reflect over 2 million people.'” As of the date of the rally, over five months after the Central Government’s November 14 letter requesting a revised report, the DMK government had not submitted a revised DPR.

Madurai traders and residents were equally outraged by the rejection. Citizens questioned why cities like Agra, Patna, and Bhopal, all with populations below the 20 lakh threshold, had been approved for Metro projects, while Madurai was turned away. The Tamil Nadu government did raise this concern publicly, calling it an “uneven application” of the Centre’s Metro Rail Policy, but without submitting a corrected report, the protest remained political rather than procedural.

Annamalai also raised a sharp warning about fare affordability, citing the Bangalore Metro as a cautionary tale. “Due to flawed planning, fares have skyrocketed to between 130 and 160 rupees” in Bengaluru, he said, noting that MP Tejasvi Surya had been forced to take the matter to court to prevent further fare hikes. “Our objective is to implement the Metro project in the most appropriate manner. If our mothers have to pay 80 rupees just to travel from one point to another, no one will bother riding the Metro at all.” He pledged that the NDA alliance’s priority would be to bring the Metro to Madurai at an affordable fare of ₹20.

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“Journalists Said Change Is Coming In Madurai, PTR Went After Them”: Annamalai Exposes How PTR Heckled With Journos On X

By
The Commune
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ptr annamalai

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 exposed PTR massively for all the statements that he has been making against Sundar C.

BJP’s K. Annamalai levelled a pointed charge against DMK’s P. Palanivel Thiagarajan (PTR): that the sitting MLA and minister has been using X (formerly Twitter) to identify, name, and publicly attack journalists who reported that a wave of change was building in the constituency.

“Yesterday, three journalists — our friends from the press — were on that app (X),” Annamalai said at a public rally. “They came, they observed the situation, and they affirmed: ‘Yes, a change is indeed coming to Madurai Central.’ Upon hearing this, he (PTR) began singling out journalists one by one on Twitter — grabbing hold of them and lashing out: ‘How dare you say that? You are a BJP broker! You have taken money from Brother A.C. Shanmugam! You have taken money from Modi! You are all nothing but brokers!'”

Annamalai said PTR had also been picking fights with actor-politician Khushbu Sundar, a BJP leader, on X since the morning of the rally. The charge reflects a broader pattern: PTR, known for his combative social media presence, has attracted criticism for targeting members of the press when coverage is unfavourable. PTR’s own X account bio notes that critics accuse DMK of continuing “to threaten and intimidate the fourth pillar” – a reference to independent media.

Annamalai contrasted PTR’s social media aggression with what he said should be basic electoral duty. “Your job is to go door-to-door among the people, ask for their votes, and explain what developmental work you have accomplished,” he said. “Instead of doing that, he has made it his full-time occupation to sit on Twitter.” He drew a pointed parallel with Deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin, saying even Udhayanidhi only “checks Instagram until midnight” — but PTR is “constantly glued to Twitter, waiting to see who says what so he can retort.”

On X, over the past couple of days, PTR has been attacking a few journalists as below for pointing out facts and saying they were lying and were doing this because they received money from specific people. Here are those posts. He even went on to link a few journalists such as Sandhya Ravishankar and Vinodh Arulappan who were not even in touch with each other.

Vinodh Arulappan posted a video of how public were angry with him for not doing any work in Madurai as MLA.

PTR responded as below:

The broader context of the attack is PTR’s arrogance. Annamalai quoted PTR as responding to questions with “Do you even know who I am in Madurai? Do you know who my father is?”, and compared this attitude directly to what he characterised as the dynastic arrogance of the Stalin family, who he said respond to criticism with “I am the son of Muthuvel Karunanidhi.” “Just answer the question that was asked,” Annamalai demanded. “What have you done for Madurai in ten years as MLA?”

The BJP’s candidate against PTR is director-producer Sundar C, whose entry into Madurai Central has, according to Annamalai, rattled PTR enough to break his long-held public posture of refusing to name or acknowledge any opponent. “For the very first time, Mr. PTR, who has hitherto maintained this haughty posture, is now actively campaigning by explicitly naming Sundar C,” Annamalai noted. “That itself tells you how much Brother Sundar C has become your voice.”

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“Arrested In August, Out On Bail By October”: Annamalai Raises Heat On PTR Over Madurai Corporation Scam

By
The Commune
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Annamalai Takes A Jibe At DMK Min PTR Sycophantic Praise Of Udhayanidhi Stalin

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 exposed PTR massively for all the statements that he has been making against Sundar C.

As BJP’s K. Annamalai took the stage in Madurai Central, he didn’t mince words. “Madurai Corporation corruption, ₹200 crore, who did this?” he thundered. “The Mayor’s husband. Arrested in August, out on bail by October.” The question, he said, was one that PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan — the sitting DMK MLA and candidate for Madurai Central — had conspicuously refused to answer.

The scam at the centre of this political storm is no allegation. In August 2025, the Madurai city police’s Central Crime Branch arrested Pon Vasanth (49), husband of Madurai Corporation Mayor Indrani Ponvasanth, in connection with a massive ₹200 crore property tax fraud. The fraud, investigators found, occurred between 1 April 2022 and 31 July 2024 – the period during which Pon Vasanth wielded considerable influence over the civic body as secretary of DMK’s Madurai-Arapalayam unit.

The modus operandi was brazen. Pon Vasanth allegedly approached prominent property owners and offered to ensure their properties were not subject to tax hikes – in exchange for under-the-table payments. Meanwhile, ordinary citizens faced property tax increases of anywhere between 25% and 100%. At least 13 individuals were arrested in connection with the case, and over 15 corporation workers, including bill collectors and data entry operators, were suspended.

The Madras High Court, unimpressed by bail applications, denied Pon Vasanth’s plea, with Justice S. Srimathy’s bench emphasising the “gravity of evidence” against him. A Special Investigation Team led by DIG Abhinav Kumar was constituted on High Court orders, and investigators traced money trails through multiple middlemen, recovering digital footprints of repeated nighttime logins to tax portals.

By October 2025, the political fallout became untenable. Mayor Indrani Ponvasanth resigned from office, tendering her resignation in Chennai, reportedly under the direct supervision of senior state minister KN Nehru, citing “personal reasons.” The Madurai Corporation Council formally approved her resignation at an emergency meeting, leaving the city without a Mayor.

Annamalai placed PTR squarely in the frame. He displayed a photograph showing PTR, Udhayanidhi Stalin, and Pon Vasanth together, challenging PTR’s repeated public claim of having “absolutely no connection to the Corporation.” “The very man who served as his henchman, his personal enforcer, is Pon Vasanth,” Annamalai said. He also noted that Madurai, among India’s 40 cities with a population over one million, ranked last in cleanliness in a Central Government survey.

The scam has exposed what Annamalai called a deeper governance failure: ten years of PTR as MLA, broken sewage lines spewing waste near Madurai Meenakshi Temple’s Gopuram streets, and a city that has, in his words, been turned into “a garbage city.”

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“Have Guts To Call Udhayanidhi As Koothaadi?”: Sundar C Takes PTR To The Cleaners

By
The Commune
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Madurai Central constituency witnessed a sharp political exchange after Palanivel Thiagarajan, speaking at a campaign rally, launched a pointed attack on his opponent, AIADMK candidate Sundar C, targeting his background in the film industry.

Addressing the gathering, PTR Thiagarajan said, “Cinema sanghis are all doing this together for their next business. Never at any time have we accepted such deceitful drama-playing, performing (referring to those in cinema field) individuals. What do we say? Beating our chest, what do we say? I am a Maduraikaaran, a man from Madurai!”

The remarks triggered a strong rebuttal from Sundar C, who responded at a separate public meeting. He said, “But today, when I hear everything he is saying about me, only one thing comes to mind. At the drop of the hat, he keeps calling himself an educated man over and over again. Educated people must show it through their actions, it doesn’t show through a mere certificate that you’re educated.”

Reacting specifically to the term “cinema sangi,” Sundar C added, “I have come from cinema, the entire world knows it, the people of Madurai know it, the people of Tamil Nadu all know it. On top of that, there’s an extra word – ‘sanghi.’ The next word someone has used is ‘koothaadi’ (street dancer/jester). He has referred to me as ‘koothaadi’.”

Invoking prominent Dravidian leaders, he said, “In those days, Arignar Anna (C.N. Annadurai) acted in dramas, so he was also a koothaadi then. Their leader Dr. Kalaignar (M. Karunanidhi) wrote and acted in dramas, so he was also a koothaadi then. Why, now we have our honorable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Stalin, he also acted, so he is also a koothaadi then. Honorable Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, who acted as a hero in many films, if you have the courage, if you have the guts, look at the respected Udhayanidhi Stalin and say it, let’s see if you have the courage to call him a koothaadi. Do you have the courage?”

He further extended the comparison to AIADMK icons, stating, “And why not this, we saw the Puratchi Thalaivar MGR, we saw the Puratchi Thalaivi Amma (Jayalalithaa), you called them ‘koothaadi’ back then too. And they shook your entire movement, didn’t they? History is repeating itself now.”

Sundar C also accused PTR Thiagarajan of making personal remarks and avoiding key issues. He said, “He has spoken about my wife too… He says he wants to fight it out. But before that he must know his former right-hand man, Balaji is now in jail. His left-hand man Lakshmanan, he is hiding somewhere abroad. First let him handle these two and then come to me.”

Raising allegations related to civic governance, he added, “The corruption that happened in Madurai Corporation, ₹200 crore corruption – who did it? The Mayor’s husband, who is he close to? – he was put in jail, came out on bail, who brought him to that position? Tell all this history – I’ll listen too.”

He also questioned PTR Thiagarajan’s engagement with constituents, stating, “For three-quarters of an hour, until now I have not spoken about anyone – not about opposition speakers, not about this person, not about that person. You say everything, for every point I make, you give reasons. But there is one thing you never answered about the Madurai Corporation corruption – you spoke breathlessly for three-quarters of an hour, why did you not speak even one word about the Madurai Corporation corruption? You are firm only about throwing garbage at me. Madurai itself is full of garbage, you don’t see that. He said there’s a welfare scheme assistance every 500 feet, an MLA’s assistance scheme. Don’t know if there’s anything within 500 feet here. If it is, very happy. He talks on and on, cheats people over and over again, grabbing power without doing a single good thing, sitting in power and only during election time coming and giving heroic speeches, hoodwinking the people, creating divisions among the people, the time to send this crowd out to the streets has come. He mouthed so much but in five years, how many people came to see you and how many times? Did he meet anyone? Nobody came. Meaning, he didn’t come to see you. Okay, could you at least go to him to tell your problems? No. I hear people saying that if they go, they unleash the dogs there. I didn’t say it – I am saying what I heard from you. I didn’t say it. The house is two kilometres away from the gate, oh my god! That’s why I’m saying, what you’re saying, you can go to the palace (aranmanai) but not enter it. In the movie ‘Aranmanai,’ there are many ghosts running around, I have acted in ‘Aranmanai,’ I have done it. But truly, the time has come to drive away many corrupt ghosts (corrupt individuals) from this country.”

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