Editorial: Beast mode

CHENNAI: In a fruition of the long-standing dream of his fans, actor Vijay finally took the political plunge by announcing the name of his outfit Tamizhaga Vetri Kazhagam last Friday. Speculations were rife for many years regarding the star making a foray into Tamil Nadu politics. Those whispers were put to rest when Thalapathy came clean on his electoral ambition of providing Tamil Nadu with a casteless, corruption-free, transparent and efficient administration. The party, named synonymously, will contest the 2026 Assembly polls in the state, but it would not support anybody in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

The actor, one year shy of 50, has timed his entry at an opportune moment. Having played messiah of the masses in blockbusters in his youth, like MGR did in his heydays, Vijay is primed to get down to brass tacks. His fan club cum welfare association — the All India Thalapathy Vijay Makkal Iyakkam has laid the groundwork, offering relief in the aftermath of natural calamities, and setting up study centres for needy students. The actor has channelled ideas of social justice depicted bombastically in his films into an electoral pitch-note that he hopes will find favour among TN’s ‘disillusioned’ youngsters.

He broke with tradition and did away with the ubiquitous sobriquet of Dravida in his party name, in an attempt to showcase his ideology as ‘something different’ from that of the existing Dravidian majors and the smaller outfits that embraced Periyar’s philosophy. Over the past two decades, he has often locked horns with the ruling parties. A case in point is his film Kaavalan running into trouble due to interference from members of the polity, back when the DMK was in power between 2006-11. Similarly in 2013 when the AIADMK was ruling, his film Thalaiva, which featured the tagline, Time to Lead, was cleared for theatrical exhibition only after the tagline was struck off. The actor has even annoyed the BJP, as his film Mersal, featured some dialogues critical of the GST.

Shaking up the decades-old duopoly of Tamil Nadu’s polity might be easier said than done, as we have seen through the examples of predecessors like Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Vijayakanth, and Seeman among others. Rajinikanth’s political entry was hinted at with much fanfare, back in 1996 when he took on then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, and the latter ended up losing the election. However, Rajini’s dithering on making his splash in statecraft infuriated his loyalists, and the actor eventually bowed out of the race on account of health issues.

Another silver screen casualty was Kamal Haasan, whose Makkal Needhi Maiyam ended up losing some of its top lieutenants early on, including R Mahendran and stalwarts like AG Maurya and Santosh Babu, which led to his party getting edged out. Vijayakanth, whose DMDK bagged 8.5% votes in the 2006 Assembly polls all by itself, went on to ally with Jayalalithaa in 2011 elections and bagged 29 seats, clearing the deck for Vijayakanth’s transformation into an opposition leader. However, his poor health turned out to be his undoing. Then there’s Seeman, whose Naam Tamilar Katchi has been working with subaltern communities for many years now. However, his vote share was limited to 6.89% in the Assembly elections of 2021.

Whether Vijay chooses to go it alone, or possibly ally with another outfit in the days to come, remains to be seen. Needless to say, Vijay’s entry into TN’s polity, that is loaded to the gills, will make for interesting times, come election season.