Chennai, India – Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay has claimed ownership over 50 cents of government poromboke land at Vilpatti village in Kodaikanal, falsely declared a property sold by him for ₹35 crore at Padi in Chennai as his property worth ₹7 crore, and wrongly termed his Neelangarai bungalow as inherited property, an election petitioner has claimed before the Madras High Court. However, Vijay said the allegations against him were baseless and the petition must be dismissed.
In the petition pending before Justice V. Lakshminarayanan, S. Dinesh, a voter from Perambur constituency, insisted the election of the Chief Minister must be declared null and void for “wilful and deliberate” suppression, misrepresentation, and false declarations with respect to many of the immovable properties referred to in his 2026 election affidavit.
According to the petitioner’s counsel V.R. Shanmuganathan, Vijay had claimed to have purchased the Vilpatti agricultural land for a consideration of ₹30,000 in 1997. Vijay had also said the present market value of that property was around ₹20 lakh. However, an examination of the village ‘A’ register revealed the property was actually government poromboke land, the counsel claimed. Similarly, the Chief Minister had declared to have purchased a non-agricultural land measuring 33,955 square feet at Porur in Chennai for ₹9.13 crore in 2010. However, examination of registration department documents revealed that he had purchased only 20,773 square feet for ₹7.5 crore.
He went on to state that Vijay had declared owning a ₹7 crore worth 11,854 sq.ft commercial building at Padi in Chennai and claimed to have purchased it for ₹1.95 crore in 2009 besides spending ₹3.9 crore on construction. However, he had sold the commercial building with a constructed area of 23,460 sq.ft for ₹35 crore on February 12, 2026, the petitioner claimed. In so far as the Neelangarai bungalow was concerned, the election petitioner said it was not inherited, and that the 2005 settlement deed had declared the value of the property to be ₹2.75 crore, while the 2026 election affidavit claimed the market value was around ₹20 crore.
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Filing an application to reject the election petition at the threshold without taking it for the long-drawn process of trial, the Chief Minister said all the allegations levelled against him were false, unfounded, baseless, and completely misconceived. Highlighting that he had secured 1,20,365 votes and won by a margin of 53,715 votes in Perambur constituency, Vijay said his election could not be nullified on flimsy allegations. “No attempt has been made to show how these imaginary perceived defects have affected the outcome of the election in any manner. The people of the constituency knew they were voting for a well-known cinema actor who is also a very good human being,” he said. Justice Lakshminarayanan has commenced hearing arguments on the Chief Minister’s plea to reject the election petition, and the case has been adjourned to Wednesday for hearing the other side.
