AA Edit | Vijay Tests Waters in TN’s Dravidian Politics

The actor-turned politician Vijay has just declared that his fledgling party Tamil Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) will be going it alone in the polls and may be fielding candidates in all 234 constituencies. The X-factor will come into play as the state goes to the polls on April 23, with the equation somewhat altered from a routine straight fight between the two major Dravidian party-led fronts in DMK+ and AIADMK+, with Seeman’s Naam Tamilar Katchi and its Tamil nationalism plank, being only a minor poll player.

Wooed by AIADMK as well as BJP, Vijay has withstood the pressures to get into an alliance now as he sees a bright future for himself in politics, however clouded his campaign efforts became since a nasty stampede in one of his political meetings that cost 41 lives. What effect he will have on the polls, and whether his popularity as an agent of change among the youth, women and minorities will convert into votes enough to win Assembly seats, may determine what happens to the race to the seat of power in Fort St. George.

The early advantage in alliance formation — in Tamil Nadu’s permanent quest for being good in election arithmetic, while adding the vote percentages allies can bring in — appears to be with the ruling DMK. Having managed it well while also encouraging new parties to come in and try to split rival AIADAMK’s Thevar vote bank, Stalin will be hoping to join MGR and Jayalalithaa of AIADMK in the state’s poll record book by achieving what the Dravidian patriarch, his father M. Karunanidhi, could not as he never won a poll as a sitting chief minister.

Pitching his campaign as a battle against New Delhi rule on the count that the non-BJP ruled state has been discriminated against for five years, Stalin has projected himself as the saviour of Tamil identity and pride. What may be boosting his chances is the fact that the state’s economy has grown steadily with Tamil Nadu a leader now nationally in GSDP growth, besides social justice practices the [party is proud of. With a dedicated cadre promising a steady number of committed voters, Stalin’s DMK is the frontrunner even in what could be a close-run race as predicted in early poll surveys.

The AIADMK, which has joined hands with the BJP in alliance again for the 2026 Assembly polls after the parties had broken their 2021 state poll alliance and fought the 2024 Lok Sabha polls separately, is hoping to cash in on anti-incumbency while charging the DMK with nepotism and dynastic rule practices along the lines of its national party ally Congress. Having taken full control of his party after a split post-2021, Edappadi Palaniswami is being backed by the BJP towards its objective of dislodging the DMK.

It is to be seen how the alliance will work out for AIADMK as its association with the BJP was seen as a hit to its Dravidian image in the last state polls, with the national ruling party seen as an “outsider” in Tamil Nadu, though it has four MLAs and is not a new player in state politics. Each successive campaign will invariably be seen as more intense than the last one, but with ageing Dravidian leaders in Mr Stalin and Mr Palaniswami and the youth factor entering the fray in Vijay, the polls will be fraught with greater interest.