Actor-director Bose Venkat has waded into Tamil Nadu's latest political slugfest, and he's not really picking a side. He's torching the whole stage.

In an interview posted to YouTube, following heated exchanges in the state assembly involving Chief Minister Vijay's government and the DMK opposition, Venkat let loose on what he called the death of political civility in Tamil Nadu since 2023, the year, he says, social media turned disagreement into dumping.

"Someone throws his own house's garbage into someone else's dustbin," he said, describing how personal attacks have replaced real debate. Only people with education, character and sense respect others, he argued. Everyone else just treats social media like a trash can.

Where's the loan waiver

Venkat's actual complaint is about attention, not etiquette. He said it's fine that young people now watch assembly proceedings live, but asked whether anyone is tracking what actually gets debated inside. What happened to the farm loan waiver? Did women really receive the promised Rs 2,500? He pointed specifically to the LPG cylinder subsidy, asking why a promise of six subsidised cylinders turned into three.

Instead, he said, all anyone talks about is what the Chief Minister wore to the House. "Look, he's in a silk shirt" goes viral, Venkat said, while murders happen elsewhere in the state and nobody seems to care. Politics, he argued, needs to be about what people actually need, not what's entertaining to watch.

Venkat also brought up corruption claims against the DMK, though he framed them as claims rather than settled fact. He said the party has committed multiple corrupt acts and that evidence exists, but added he wouldn't produce it publicly, keeping it "in reserve." CutMirchi could not independently verify these allegations, and Venkat's interview names no specific instance of wrongdoing.

He turned the same skepticism on himself too, insisting he wasn't claiming to be the good guy simply because he was criticising the government. "Whoever only criticises isn't necessarily good either," he said, before taking a swipe at commentator Adhav Arjuna, questioning his standing to speak on corruption given what Venkat described as his past political affiliations, without offering further detail.

By the end, Venkat said he'd simply stopped watching assembly sessions, something he used to do regularly for both DMK's M K Stalin and AIADMK's Edappadi Palaniswami. Nothing constructive happens in there anymore, he said, comparing the current assembly to a road lined with garbage on both sides. Would anyone enjoy looking at that, he asked.

Whether Venkat's broadside changes the conversation or just adds one more voice to it is anyone's guess. Tamil Nadu's political circuit shows no sign of slowing its social media theatre down.