The Tamil Nadu police had on Friday arrested former ADMK Minister MR Vijayabhaskar in Karur after the latter had disputed with the electoral officials, following the suspension of the district-level poll where ADMK was said to have held the edge to win the poll by defeating the ruling DMK regime. The police had also detained hundreds of ADMK cadres and taken them under custody as the development had stirred a furore across the state. 

MR Vijayabhaskar had served as the Minister of Transport in the previous ADMK regime led by Edappadi Palaniswami and recently, he came under the scanner of Tamil Nadu's anti-corruption agency where his properties were raided by the authorities under the grounds that he had amassed more wealth beyond his income sources. In the 2021 assembly polls, he contested in the Karur constituency and eventually lost the race to his rival DMK's Senthil Balaji. 

Recently, Tamil Nadu had hosted rural local body polls for nine districts and along with these districts, the Karur district had gone through a bypoll. The ruling DMK had recorded a landslide victory in the local body polls and the indirect election to elect new District Panchayat Chairman and Vice-Chairman in all these districts had held on Friday - October 22. As DMK has got more councillors, these posts were swept by the ruling regime and besides these nine districts, the Karur district was scheduled to elect a district panchayat vice-chairman today through an indirect election. 

District councillors are eligible to elect the vice-chairman and chairman for district panchayats. ADMK has eight district councillors in Karur while the DMK has four councillors. As the election for district panchayat vice-chairman was scheduled to take place on Friday, the leaders and councillors of ADMK and DMK had gathered at the Karur Collectorate to cast their votes. However, the electoral officer, who came to the premises at around 2.30 pm on Friday, has announced that the election has been deferred. 

Soon after the announcement, he left the place and the sudden announcement of deferring the election had sparked outrage from the ADMK leaders including former minister MR Vijayabhaskar, who was present there. They had expressed disappointment over the deferment and sieged the electoral officer's car and demand the reason for why the election has been postponed.

MR Vijayabhaskar and hundreds of ADMK cadres had protested against postponing the election and as the protest continued, the local police department had arrested Vijayabhaskar and about 500 ADMK cadres and taken them under custody. The incident had sparked furore from across the state and the visuals from the spot had shown that the police personnel pushing Vijayabhaskar and the ADMK cadres into a police van. The ADMK functionaries had claimed that the election was deferred after the ruling DMK had directed to postpone the election with apprehension that the ADMK will win the election.