In August 2021, three months after being sworn in as Finance Minister of Tamil Nadu under the newly elected DMK government, P Thiaga Rajan released a White Paper on the state’s finances which said the fiscal situation was “dire” and there were “no buffers left” due to structural flaws in governance. That was after 10 years of AIADMK being in power. Five years later, after being sworn in as Chief Minister, TVK founder C Joseph Vijay on Sunday said he would soon release a White Paper on Tamil Nadu ’s finances, accusing the DMK of leaving the state “in a bad shape” with a debt of Rs 10 lakh crore. At the same time, Vijay announced 200 units of free electricity every two months for domestic consumers — at a cost to the government of Rs 1,730 crore per year, according to an order by the state’s Energy department. Vijay’s predecessor M K Stalin responded sharply, rejecting the suggestion that the state treasury had been emptied.…