Farmers from Parandur meet Tamil Nadu CM Vijay, thank him for scrapping airport project

A day after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay announced in the State Assembly the government’s decision to drop the Parandur Greenfield Airport project, members of the Parandur Greenfield Airport Opposition Joint Movement, on Tuesday (August 25, 2026), met and thanked him at the Secretariat in Chennai for the move.

G. Subramanian, president; S.T. Kadhiresan, secretary; and other members of the movement met Mr. Vijay and Ministers N. Anand, Aadhav Arjuna, C.T.R. Nirmal Kumar, and K. Thennarasu. Speaking to reporters after meeting the Chief Minister, Mr. Subramanian said the villagers had been protesting for the past five years against the Parandur Greenfield Airport project.

“We had explained to the [then] Chief Minister [M.K. Stalin] and officials during the previous DMK regime, with documents, that the geographical conditions were not suitable for the project. Despite that, they went ahead with land acquisition for the project,” he said.

He said the project, if implemented, would have destroyed thousands of acres of agricultural and wetland areas and the historic Kamban Canal, which was 1,110 years old. Had the project been implemented, it would have destroyed the livelihoods of people living in the area, he said.

He said Mr. Vijay met them at Parandur as TVK president in January last year and promised that if his party was voted to power, the project would be cancelled. “He heard our grievances and voices. Now that he has become the Chief Minister, he has kept his promise and the project has been scrapped. This is an important milestone. Today, we met him and expressed our gratitude for safeguarding the livelihoods of farmers,” he said.

Lane to be named after CM Vijay

As a gesture of gratitude, he said, the villagers of Ekanapuram had decided to name a lane in their village as C. Joseph Vijay road. He also alleged that the DMK was spreading misleading information that the scrapping of the Parandur Airport project would severely affect the State’s economy.