Modi & Vijay launch Chennai Metro Phase II: A striking political weekend
On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay stood beside each other at a Metro station in western Chennai, waved green flags and then boarded the train together. It was the first run on the first operational stretch of Chennai Metro Rail’s Phase II, a project six years in the making.
But the journey also completed a striking political weekend for Vijay. On Saturday, he hosted Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi for lunch at his Neelankarai home. Twenty-four hours later, he was receiving Modi at the airport, travelling with him on the Metro, visiting a temple with him and sharing a public stage.
For a Chief Minister heading a government in alliance with the Congress, it was an unusual sequence, made more conspicuous by the turmoil in Delhi following Gandhi’s detention and Vijay’s decision not to publicly condemn it.
Modi’s Tamil Nadu trip
Modi landed in Chennai around 11.10 am. Vijay, who had left his Neelankarai residence around 10.30 am, received him at the airport with a shawl, bouquet and handshake. AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami was also present.
As Modi’s convoy travelled towards Porur, BJP workers lined sections of the route and the Prime Minister waved from his vehicle. Vijay’s convoy followed. By 11.50 am, the two were at Porur Bypass station, where officials briefed them on the Rs 4,900-crore Poonamallee-Vadapalani section.
After 12 pm, Modi and Vijay flagged off the train with Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar. Minutes later they were inside it, travelling from Porur Bypass to Poonamallee and back, the first commuters on a network that opened to the public later Sunday.
The Rs 4,900-crore Metro project covers a 14.64-km elevated stretch between Poonamallee Bypass and Vadapalani, with 11 stations initially open to passengers and a 3.7-km double-decker section. Passenger services began at 4 pm on Sunday, with trains scheduled every 10 minutes during weekday peak hours and every 15 minutes at other times.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay travel in a metro during the inauguration of the Poonamallee-Vadapalani stretch of Chennai Metro Phase-2, in Chennai on Sunday. (DPR PMO/ANI Photo)
The Metro inauguration was part of a larger package of projects worth more than Rs 13,000 crore, including national highway works worth Rs 3,700 crore, the Karaikal–Peralam railway line, five redeveloped railway stations, port infrastructure projects and the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre at IIT Madras. The new Metro stretch connects Chennai’s western suburbs with the existing network at Vadapalani.
‘Over and above’
The official programme could have ended there for Vijay. However, it did not. From Porur, the Prime Minister proceeded by road towards IIT Madras, in what took on some of the visual character of a roadshow. Vijay accompanied the Prime Minister to the campus.
There, at about 1.40 pm, Modi offered prayers at the Jalakandeshwarar Temple. Vijay and Arlekar accompanied him for the temple visit.
Vijay’s presence with PM Modi at the temple was nevertheless notable. Tamil Nadu Chief Ministers have routinely shared official platforms with Prime Ministers, even when their parties occupied opposing political camps. But accompanying Modi to the temple produced a more sustained public association than the minimum protocol demanded by official events, something Vijay’s predecessors never did.
Stark contrast
The contrast with the previous day was difficult to miss. Until Friday afternoon, even Gandhi’s lunch with Vijay had been uncertain. People in Gandhi’s camp had questioned why the Congress leader should seek out Vijay when the Chief Minister’s side appeared hesitant about the meeting, Vijay’s camp had reservations of its own.
A meeting across party lines is hardly remarkable for a Chief Minister: M Karunanidhi, J Jayalalithaa, Palaniswami and M K Stalin all dealt with Prime Ministers from rival political formations. Modi himself made the point on Sunday. “As a CM, I got multiple opportunities to interact with Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa. When I became Prime Minister, I got the opportunity to work with Jayalalithaa, O Panneerselvam, E Palaniswami, and MK Stalin… We are taking this journey forward with CM Joseph Vijay…” For Modi, Sunday’s event placed him repeatedly beside a Chief Minister whose personal popularity transformed Tamil Nadu politics this year.
Vijay’s appeal on display
The politics occasionally surfaced from the audience. At the IIT Madras event, TVK cadres blew the party’s whistles as Modi spoke and some held placards carrying Vijay’s photograph and the words “next Prime Minister”, a formulation that has already caused unease within Congress.
Vijay, however, used his speech largely to conduct the business of a Chief Minister. “When the state and Centre work together, the benefit will reflect in people’s lives,” he said, thanking Modi for the projects and setting a target of making Tamil Nadu a $1.5-trillion economy by 2036.
He also presented a substantial list of demands: approval for Chennai Metro Phase III, reconsideration of Metro proposals for Coimbatore and Madurai, support for an interstate Metro connection between Hosur and Bommasandra in Karnataka, approval for the Godavari-Cauvery river-linking project, Tamil as an official language of the Madras High Court, high-speed corridors connecting Chennai with Coimbatore and Kanyakumari, and the release of pending Samagra Shiksha funds.
Modi said the inaugurated projects would improve connectivity and create jobs, and promised the Centre’s support for Tamil Nadu’s development.
For Vijay, the weekend had begun with an awkwardly negotiated lunch with the face of the national Opposition and ended with several hours alongside the Prime Minister. In between those two encounters lay the peculiar arithmetic of being Tamil Nadu’s new Chief Minister. Allied with one national pole, governing with the other in Delhi and, over one weekend, photographed extensively with both.
