Thuraiyur, April 18 -- The campaigning for the 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections has reached a fever pitch on Saturday as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched a sharp attack on the BJP-AIADMK alliance, claiming that the BJP aims to remove Chief Minister MK Stalin and replace him with a "puppet" in the AIADMK in the state.

Addressing a massive rally in Thuraiyur, Gandhi framed the upcoming April 23 polls as a fundamental ideological battle between the major politcal fronts in the state, DMK-Congress and AIADMK-BJP.

"This election is not a normal election; it is fundamentally different from the ones before. In these elections, on one side, you have our Alliance, and on the other side, there is the BJP alliance with AIADMK, a...