Joseph Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam came to power promising clean, alternative politics, but on Chennai’s streets, many residents are seeing something far more familiar: giant banners, illegal cut-outs, roadside posters, and flagpoles celebrating him and his party men at the cost of ordinary people’s movement and safety. For a party that spoke the language of change, TVK’s visual takeover of public spaces is beginning to look less like public enthusiasm and more like old-style political nuisance in a new colour scheme.
Across parts of Chennai, residents have complained that TVK banners and posters have mushroomed on roadsides, sidewalks, medians, and walls, creating inconvenience and defacing public spaces. A ground report by The New Indian Express said a huge cut-out in Royapuram blocked pedestrian access on a footpath, effectively pushing people onto the road, while several flagpoles were seen along the centre median in Velachery and massive cut-outs were also reported near Thiruvanmiyur on ECR.
Need change… @TVKVijayHQ
Not the change people asked for!! pic.twitter.com/frkv6TcnA0— Chennai Updates (@UpdatesChennai) May 10, 2026
Why this kind of dangerous banners across the roads by blocking even the footpath @TVKPartyHQ..? Is this the change people expected? Please don’t make us suffer.
And I wonder why people like @Arappor are dumb silent on this.. Literally pathetic.@UpdatesChennai#TVK #Chennai pic.twitter.com/evWnYtXEUY— Ilango Rajan (@IlangoRajan) May 11, 2026
Welcome back Banner culture@Arappor வாருங்கள் களமாடுங்கள்… pic.twitter.com/877sCmY9zN
— Dr.S.A.S. Hafeezullah (@DrHafeezDMKoffl) May 10, 2026
When flagpoles and flex structures crowd public stretches, they narrow usable space, distract traffic, and increase risk in a city already struggling with congestion, encroachments, and weak civic enforcement. Chennai has seen this pattern before, and the Madras High Court has repeatedly made it clear that banners cannot obstruct pedestrian or vehicular movement and that the public must not be inconvenienced.
That is why the hypocrisy charge sticks. TVK and Vijay marketed themselves as a moral-political correction to the old Dravidian style of power display, yet residents quoted in recent reporting have asked why a leader with such immense fame needs illegal publicity structures at all. The criticism is not coming only from rivals; even supporters and online well-wishers urged Vijay to intervene and stop the defacement.
A truly ‘Thooya Sakthi’ would begin with clean public conduct. It would not allow cadres, local strongmen, or newly empowered legislators to occupy pavements and medians with the leader’s face. It would show discipline from day one, because public ethics are tested not only in assembly speeches but also in how a ruling party behaves on the street corner outside a marriage hall, a market road, or a busy junction.
The larger problem is that Tamil Nadu’s banner culture has long thrived on the idea that political visibility matters more than civic order. Courts have repeatedly intervened because unauthorised banners and hoardings obstruct roads, inconvenience pedestrians, and can become safety hazards, yet parties continue to behave as though public space is partisan property for temporary occupation.
If Vijay wants to protect the reformist image of TVK, this is one of the easiest tests before him. He does not need another speech. He needs one public order to his cadre: no illegal banners, no cut-outs on footpaths, no flex boards on roads, no political vanity at the expense of citizens. Until that happens, every oversized poster of his smiling face in Chennai will stand not as a symbol of victory, but as evidence that TVK is learning the oldest political habit in the state – public inconvenience as spectacle.
Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.
