Narrow roads, holiday crowds: 2,000 police line CM Vijay's campaign convoy through Coimbatore

On Sunday, Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay passed through Coimbatore on his way to Dharapuram, where he will campaign for TVK candidate Sathyabama ahead of Tuesday's assembly bypoll. It was his second visit to the constituency in a week — and it took roughly 2,000 police personnel to get him through the city. Police diverted the chief minister's convoy off the usual Goldwins–Chinniampalayam–Neelambur route onto an alternative through Chitra, Kamarajapuram, Singanallur and Ondipudur — busier residential neighbourhoods with narrower stretches of road. Officials cited large holiday crowds expected along the route on a Sunday. The revised route passes through areas where crowd management, by the police's own admission, is a real concern. The scale of the deployment is the story. Two thousand police — a small army — to shepherd one man's campaign convoy through a city on a holiday. In a state where the opposition stages sit-ins outside police stations because it cannot get its detained leaders released, the machinery of the state lines the streets for the ruling party's roadshow. Indeed, as the convoy rolled, AIADMK cadres held a sit-in outside the Dharapuram Police Station, protesting the detention of the party's rural district secretary Selvakumar, according to reporting carried by news89 and India Today. The image of the day is a split screen: the government on the streets in strength, the opposition on the pavement in protest. The bypolls themselves are the chief minister's own making. The Dharapuram and Madurantakam seats were won by the AIADMK just four months ago; the sitting MLAs resigned and crossed over to the TVK, forcing Tuesday's contest. AMMK leader TTV Dhinakaran has blamed the chief minister directly for the bypoll, calling a TVK government a 'curse' for Tamil Nadu and demanding Election Commission action against MLAs who resign shortly after being elected. Vijay's last Dharapuram visit, on September 30, was staged at a 54-acre venue with QR-code entry passes, LED screens and a stage built on a bus. He appealed to voters to regard him as their son and a family member, declared his government against corruption, and attacked the DMK and AIADMK as equivalents. On Sunday he also condemned derogatory remarks against women politicians, referring to body-shaming comments allegedly made by former chief minister M.K. Stalin against TVK's Dharapuram candidate — a claim reported by news89 that The Justice could not independently verify. Campaigning ends today. Voting is on October 6. The question the 2,000-strong cordon leaves behind is an old one: when the campaign becomes the government, who is left to govern?