Chennai: During the audio launch of the 2018 political action film Sarkar, Tamil actor Vijay, its lead star, was asked what he would do if he ever became a chief minister. Vijay, whose political inclinations were just beginning to show then, was quick with his response. “If I ever become a CM in real life, I won’t be acting as a CM but I would sincerely do my duties,” he said.
Six years later, Vijay had a different kind of Friday release — the launch of his party, Tamizhaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK). Taking to social media platform X, he announced his long-speculated political entry. “It is my long-term intention and desire to help the people of Tamil Nadu, who gave me name, fame, and everything after my parents,” the 49-year-old actor, fondly called ‘Thalapathy’ — or commander — said in his statement.
— Vijay (@actorvijay) February 2, 2024
Politics and cinema have for years gone hand-in-hand in South India, and Tamil Nadu has been no exception. While movie stars like M.G. Ramachandran — known popularly as MGR — and J. Jayalalithaa, and poet and playwright M. Karunanidhi went on to become chief ministers, others like Sivaji Ganesan, Vijayakanth, Sharath Kumar and Kamal Hassan have dabbled in politics with varying degrees of success.
Even Karunanidhi’s son M.K. Stalin, the current chief minister of Tamil Nadu and president of the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK), and his son Udhayanidhi, now a minister, have briefly tried their hands in the movies.
Soon after Vijay’s announcement, N. Anand (also known as Bussy Anand), the general secretary of Vijay’s fan club-turned-non-profit Vijay Makkal Iyakkham (VMI) submitted an official application to the Election Commission of India for registering the party.
ThePrint tried to reach Bussy Anand for his comment via calls and text messages. This report will be updated if and when he responds.
In its first reactions to the announcement, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the chief opposition in the state, accused Vijay of working with the BJP.
“The desperation of BJP to grow in TN is evident, the script, direction by BJP and actor Vijay executes it (sic),” AIADMK spokesperson Kovai Sathyan said in a post on X. “From the movie world barring our founder MGR and AMMA no one else has succeeded in TN politics. Failures list – Sivaji, Vijaykanth, Sarathkumar, Kamal Hassan, Udhayanidhi.”
On the other hand, the DMK has said that the Constitution permitted everyone to have their own party.
“The Constitution permits that, so we cannot say anything. The only thing is why he is starting a political party and what he is going to fight for, is a question. If he comes out about his policies and ideologies then we can accept it but as far as DMK is concerned, we have an ideology we have worked for,” the party spokesperson T.K.S Elangovan told news agency ANI.
Meanwhile, BJP’s state chief K. Annamalai said he “welcomed” Vijay’s decision.
“I am happy to congratulate and welcome brother Mr. @actorvijay who has started a new party in the name of ‘Tamilaka Vetri Kazhagam’ to work for the people against the corrupt politics that is exploiting the people of Tamil Nadu and for a non-partisan, honest and political change,” he said on X.
According to political analysts, Vijay’s entry into politics is well-timed. “I think he has understood that there is a space for an alternative to the DMK, as the AIADMK (DMK’s chief rival) has been getting weakened day by day,” political analyst J.V.C. Sreeram told ThePrint.
Sumanth C. Raman, another political analyst, believes that it made for a nice change to see a party name without the word “Dravida” in it. “This will hopefully help Tamil Nadu gradually move away from the divisive ideology,” he said.
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Tamizhaga Vettri Kazhagam
In his political statement, Vijay, who made his film debut as a child actor in the Tamil film Vetri, said that he considered politics “a debt of gratitude to the Tamil people”.
“You are all aware of the current political climate. Administrative malpractices and corrupt political culture on the one hand, and a divisive political culture which strives to divide our people along the lines of caste and religion on the other hand,” he said.
Explaining his reasons for launching a political party, the actor said that a voluntary organisation like VMI couldn’t be expected to bring about socio-economic and political reforms. He also added that the election of the party president, headquarters, office-bearers, and by-laws were approved at the outfit’s general council and the executive committee meeting on 25 January.
Vijay also made it clear that the TVK was not looking to contest the 2024 upcoming general election or support any other party. Instead, it will focus on the 2026 Tamil Nadu assembly elections.
“Contesting the 2026 assembly elections and winning them to provide a political change to the people of the state is our goal,” he said in the statement, adding that the outfit will begin working on TVK’s ideology and vision, party flag and symbol after ECI recognises it as a political party.
According to political analysts, TVK had the potential to eat into most existing parties’ vote share.
“The egalitarian ideology that Vijay has spoken about aligns with Dravidian politics. There are high chances of young voters from the Dravidian parties and Seeman’s NTK (filmmaker-politician Senthamizhan Seeman’s Naam Tamilar Katchi) switching sides to TVK,” Sumanth told ThePrint.
Vijay and his encounter with politics
This isn’t the first time that Vijay is testing the political waters. During the 2021 rural local body polls, VMI-backed candidates won 115 of 169 seats. Although these candidates contested as independents, they were allowed to use Vijay’s picture and the organisation flag for campaigning.
Even before this, however, Vijay has been known to make cryptic political statements that have led to speculations of a possible political career. The last decade or so has particularly seen the actor, who, in the first few years of his adult career, had established himself as a romantic hero, getting increasingly involved in political movements. In August 2011, for instance, he was among a band of Indian celebrities to join Gandhian activist Anna Hazare during his protest for a strong Lokpal.
It was also around this time that he began to have frequent run-ins with Tamil Nadu’s ruling establishment. In December 2010, his movie Kaavalan ran into trouble after a reported fallout with Udayanidhi Stalin, who was trying to promote Kamal Haasan starrer-Manmadan Ambu, a movie he had produced, at around the same time.
Vijay, who accused the DMK of delaying his Kaavalan’s release, approached the former chief minister and then AIAMDK chief J. Jayalalithaa for her help. The meeting between Jayalalithaa and the actor’s father S.A. Chandrasekhar, a well-known producer in Tamil cinema, led to speculations of his eventually launching a political career from that party.
But Vijay’s relationship with the AIADMK soon soured when the party protested against the actor’s 2013 film Thalaivaa. The party saw the movie’s tagline, ‘Time to lead’, as a criticism of its policies.
In 2014, Vijay became one of several Indian movie stars who met Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, whose BJP was looking to leverage an anti-incumbency wave against the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and sweep into power in that year’s general election.
But three years after this meeting, the actor’s film Mersal — his most political movie yet — faced protests from the BJP over its criticism of the Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government’s Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime and Digital India policies.
The BJP’s response to Vijay took on a communal colour when H. Raja, the party’s national general secretary, used the actor’s full Christian name — Joseph Vijay — to imply that the actor had an ulterior motive for criticising the Modi government.
Likewise, the actor’s movies Sarkar’ (2018) and Bigil (2019), too, ran into trouble with the AIADMK.
By this time, however, Vijay’s statements, like his movies, had taken on a political tone. At the audio launch for Bigil in September 2019, Vijay took a veiled dig at the AIADMK government under Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami.
“If people place the right person for the job in the right position, then all the issues will be solved,” he had said then.
But it wasn’t until 2022 that Vijay finally made his political ambitions known. In a promotional interview with a Tamil channel Sun TV in the run-up to the release of his film ‘Beast’, he said that he was willing to take the political plunge, “if that’s what his fans wanted”.
“If people, my fans, want me to transform into Thalaivan (leader), I can’t stop that change,” he said in response to the interviewer’s question.
Meanwhile, his fan association VMI had already been active in several social causes, from offering free tuition for students to felicitating rank-holders in Class 10 and 12 examinations.
At one such event last June, Vijay once again took a dig at the state of politics in Tamil Nadu.
“You are tomorrow’s voters. You will be electing our future leaders. We are poking our own eyes with our hands, by getting money for votes,” he reportedly said before adding: “Ask your parents not to accept bribes for votes”.
Last December Vijay reportedly distributed relief materials in the aftermath of Cyclone Michaung and the heavy rain and flood in Tamil Nadu’s southern districts.
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Actor-turned-politicians of Tamil Nadu
Vijay joins a list of highly esteemed Tamil cinema actors who eventually ventured into politics. AIADMK founder and former Tamil Nadu chief minister MGR began his political career in the Congress but joined the DMK in 1953. After being expelled from the party following differences with then-party chief Karunanidhi in 1972, he founded the AIAMDK.
In 1982, MGR’s protégée and frequent co-star Jayalalithaa entered politics and remained there until she died in 2016.
Another somewhat successful politician-turned-actor was Vijayakanth, whose Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) was initially touted as a welcome alternative to the DMK and the AIAMDK. But Vijaykanth’s success in politics was limited — after its launch in 2005 and meteoric rise in 2011, the party’s political fortunes took a downturn, never quite recovering since.
The leader’s death last December was deemed as a further blow to the party, currently led by his wife Premalatha.
But not every actor’s on-screen accomplishment could automatically translate into a successful political career. One such “accidental (and) hasty” entrant was Kamal Hassan, said political analyst Sreeram, referring to the actor’s launch of his regional political party, Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) in February 2018.
In 2019 — just 14 months after the party’s first launch — the MNM sprang a surprise by securing 3.72 percent votes. But the party hasn’t had much luck since, with its vote share dipping to 2.62 percent in the 2021 assembly elections.
Likewise, MGR’s contemporary Sivaji Ganesan, also dabbled in politics, flitting from the E.V. Ramaswamy ‘Periyar’s’ Dravida Kazhagam to the DMK and the Congress to even the Janata Dal, but eventually calling it quits in 1993.
According to political analyst Sumanth, quoted earlier, MGR and Jayalalithaa tasted electoral success because they had put in several years of hard work in politics.
“MGR entered politics in the early 1950s and he became CM for the first time only in 1977. Similarly, Jayalalithaa joined AIADMK in 1982 and it was only in 1991 that she became a CM,” he said. “Only when actors put in the hard yards and be consistent will they be able to taste success.”
Sreeram believes that Vijay’s decision to enter the political arena at the peak of his acting career could aid his political success. MGR, Jayalalithaa, and Vijayakanth were all at the top of their movie careers when they entered the political fray, he said.
“Sivaji and Kamal made their entry towards the later part of their career and they did not get desired success. Both of them lost the elections they contested. Vijay has come in during the prime of his career and this will be decisive for his future,” he told ThePrint.
In his statement, Vijay said politics wasn’t just a career. But he also put off entering it full-time until he finished the two pending movies — Greatest of All Time, likely to be released this year, and an untitled film.
“Politics is not a hobby for me. I understand that I need to learn the length and breadth of politics from my predecessors. I’m preparing myself for it mentally. It’s my deepest desire. I want to fully involve myself in it,” Vijay said in his statement.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)