“What is important is to take a political stand,” Vijay said, earmarking the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) as TVK’s political rival and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as its ideological rival.
“If we take a stand, it will automatically identify who our opponents are. When we say ‘all are born equal’, we have identified our real opponents. We are fighting not only against divisive politics but also against corrupt forces,” he added.
While the actor was crystal clear about who his ideological and political rivals are and who the TVK’s ideals are—Periyar, Dr B.R. Ambedkar, Kamarajar, and freedom fighters Velu Nachiyar and Anjali Ammal—for the state’s political watchers, who his actual opponent is is still a guessing game.
In other words, all parties are pointing fingers at the others to answer who Vijay will likely damage the most in the 2026 state polls. His harsh criticism of the DMK and BJP, on one hand, and his silence on the AIADMK, on the other, is also seen as curious.
Moreover, political commentators say that while Vijay, a relatively young politician, now 50, has caught the attention of the youth, the politics and ideology he plans to bring to the fray are not anything that Tamil Nadu voters have not seen before.
“Nobody is going to oppose him for his ideologies since the Dravidian parties exist with such ideologies,” said political researcher Ilyas Muhammed.
“Vijay is hardly the first person to enter politics from the cine field in Tamil Nadu, but he has a unique style of addressing his supporters, and that is mainly to attract new and young voters. That is the only apparent advantage he has going for him,” Ilyas said.
At the Vikravandi event, Vijay’s speech was theatrical, conversational, formal, and fluid, all rolled into one. He started with a story, comparing his party with a newborn baby who is unable to express love for the mother or fear for snakes. He then steered into a very traditional political speech, laying out his party’s ideology and beliefs. Then, he shifted to his casual way of talking to his fans, addressing them as ‘bro’, ‘nanbas’, ‘nanbis’, ‘thozha’, and ‘thozhi’ (meaning friends).
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More of the same in crowded space
Vijay Sunday declared that TVK would uphold various inclusive principles, including democracy, social justice, secularism, equality, education for women, two-language policy, and state autonomy.
“Assuming that the alliance formed by the parties in the state continues, TVK will be contesting as the fifth party after the two Dravidian parties, one saffron party, and one Tamil nationalist party. Despite his popularity, Vijay might be able to get only half of the vote share actor-turned-politician Vijayakanth got in his first assembly election,” political commentator Raveendran Duraisamy told ThePrint.
The late Vijayakanth founded Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam in 2005 and contested in all 234 constituencies in Tamil Nadu in 2006. He secured 8.1% of the votes that year.
“The AIADMK invited Vijayakanth to join hands in the 2011 election to beat the DMK because of his 2006 debut with an 8 percent vote share. Then, it became a bipolar contest, and Vijayakanth was the third competitor. But now Vijay would be the fifth competitor and get half the percentage of votes Vijayakanth got,” Raveendran Duraisamy said.
Vijay’s commendation of Periyar—except the latter’s atheism—is also not new, say analysts.
Vijay Sunday said that VTK would follow Periyar’s ideology, but “we would go by what Anna (former Chief Minister C.N. Annadurai) had said that there is only one race, and there is one god (ondrae kulam, oruvane thevan)”.
In 1949, while launching DMK, party founder C.N. Annadurai said that his party would not follow the atheism propagated by the DMK’s parent organisation, Dravidar Kazhagam. Annadurai first mentioned ‘one race, one god’ in the Dravida Nadu Tamil daily’s front-page snippet under the ‘one god feeling (oru kadavul unarchi)’ title.
Dravidian historian Thirunavukkarasu, also the former editor of DMK mouthpiece Murasoli, said that Annadurai started to talk about ‘one race, one god’ in 1947. “The snippet was carried in the Dravida Nadu daily on 19 October 1947, two years before he founded the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam,” Thirunavukkarasu told ThePrint.
To convey the message to the masses before his party’s launch, Annadurai ensured mentions of ‘one race, one god’ in a movie, Velaikari. The movie, based on and named after Annadurai’s play incorporating the plot of the Alexandre Dumas novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, was released on 25 February 1949.
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), founded by former Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran, also adopted Annadurai’s ‘one race, one god’ principle.
A year after founding the AIADMK, Ramachandran (MGR) released a 29-page policy document for the party—titled ‘Annaism’—at a press conference on 29 September 1973.
At the time, MGR clarified that ‘Annaism’ blended Gandhism, communism, and capitalism and that he, like Anna, would follow the ‘one race, one god’ principle.
However, the DMK and AIADMK have emphasised only state autonomy and the two-language policy in their constitution documents and have not mentioned atheism or Godliness.
Despite these Dravidian parties adopting ‘one race, one god’, former CMs Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi and current CM M.K. Stalin have all been atheists in their personal lives.
Last year, Stalin’s heir apparent, Udhayanidhi, with his call for the eradication of ‘sanatana dharma’, sparked discussions on the DMK’s anti-God roots since the party is an offshoot of Periyar’s Dravidar Kazhagam. However, the remarks barely shocked the Tamil audience, with analysts saying that Dravidian parties have always opposed ‘sanatana dharma’ and said it is against social justice and equality.
Political analyst Arun in Chennai, who has done much research on the rise of the BJP in Tamil Nadu, said that Vijay, born Joseph Vijay to a Christian father, has never practised atheism as Anna, Karunanidhi, or Stalin and that every party in the state wants the Hindu majority vote. “Even during DMK’s launch in 1949, the party did not say it was atheist. Attracting the masses necessitated Vijay to distance himself from atheism while accepting Periyar as one of his party’s ideologues,” he said.
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Youth support for Vijay
At 18, Vijay started as the debut lead actor in Naalaiya Theerpu, a movie directed by his father, S.A. Chandrasekhar, in 1992. The 50-year-old Vijay is now acting in his 69th movie, which will likely be his last, as he prepares for the 2026 assembly election.
Politics in South India has had a heavy dose of star power, and Tamil Nadu has been no exception. While film stars MGR and J. Jayalalitha and poet and playwright Karunanidhi rose to the CM rank, many others, such as Shivaji Ganesan, Vijayakanth, Sharath Kumar and Kamal Hassan, dabbled in politics with limited success.
In the political landscape of Tamil Nadu today, there has been a vacuum as far as star power is concerned. Stalwarts Jayalalitha and DMDK’s Vijayakanth are no more, and Kamal Haasan-led Makkal Needhi Maiam’s fortunes are dwindling.
While DMK scion Udhayanidhi, now Tamil Nadu’s deputy CM, is also from the film industry, he is more of a filmmaker than an actor.
“In 2026, it will be between Vijay and Deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin. With both youngsters coming from the same industry, it will be image politics only, not ideological or intellectual politics. Without his legacy, Udhayanidhi could also be seen as just another leader from the cine industry with a popular image,” said Ilyas.
Political analyst A. Ramasamy said the media has spun the narrative that film actors can succeed in Tamil Nadu politics and that leaders, such as Karunanidhi, could climb the political ladder only because of their political stance. He, however, conceded that all actors have the support of the youth, and Vijay is at the top of the charts now in Tamil cinema.
According to the IndiaVotes website, based on the 2024 Lok Sabha poll data, Tamil Nadu has 51,09,195 voters in the 18-25 category (10.4 percent) and 1,13,48,471 voters in the 25-34 age category, which accounts for the largest group of voters, at 23.1 percent.
“We do not know for whom the youngsters have been voting. Youngsters in Tamil Nadu are mostly apolitical, and they do not have any affiliation towards an ideology, except for Seeman’s (Naam Thamizhar leader Senthamizhan Seeman) Tamil nationalism,” Ramasamy said.
“Seeman has some of the youth vote banks. The BJP has some in the Kongu belt, where Annamalai contested. Some voted for the DMK because of Udhayanidhi. Now that Vijay has come into the fray, many of these voters will vote for him since he is a new face. But that would not be enough for him to win,” he added.
Which parties Vijay can hurt
Despite Vijay’s attack on DMK’s first family, the DMK is confident that Vijay will not impact its poll fortunes as it has seen many such rivals in the past 75 years. “Vijay is not the first to oppose us and will not be the last. In our 75-year journey, mostly, we have been out of power. Still, we fought for the people in the state. So, such newcomers tend to attack us, and we know that stones would be thrown only at trees bearing fruits,” DMK spokesperson T.K.S Elangovan told ThePrint, adding that TVK would only impact the vote base of the AIADMK.
Although Vijay termed the BJP as the TVK’s ideological rival, BJP leader H. Raja, the convener of the party’s co-ordination committee in the absence of state president K. Annamalai, told ThePrint that TVK would not damage the BJP’s vote share since there are no similarities in the two parties’ ideologies. “However, I welcome Vijay’s stand against the DMK. In the fight against DMK, I welcome him to join me in taking on the DMK,” Raja told ThePrint.
However, TN law minister S. Regupathy told ThePrint that Vijay would not affect the DMK even an inch, saying he was neither the A-team nor the B-team but the C-team of the BJP. “Whatever Vijay has said is what we have been following for nearly 75 years. So, he cannot even take one of our supporters since we have been working and fighting for the rights of the people in the state, irrespective of our electoral performance,” he said.
Regupathy also said that TVK would only affect the AIADMK. Vijay did not criticise the AIADMK “because he wants the votes of AIADMK supporters and cannot antagonise the AIADMK supporters”.
However, AIADMK spokesperson Babumurugavel said Vijay’s entry into politics would not hurt the AIADMK since TVK is taking more or less the same lines. “The DMK is scared of losing its vote share after the entry of Vijay. Hiding the fear of a decline in its vote share, the DMK is pointing fingers at the AIADMK,” Babumurugavel said.
There were also talks of TVK creating a dent in the vote shares of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and Naam Thamizhar, but both parties have dismissed that possibility.
“At any cost, we cannot accept Dravidam. So, we can never have a pact with Vijay, and our support base would stay intact since our ideologies vary vastly,” Seeman told the media on Monday.
VCK leader Thol. Thirumavalavan questioned Vijay’s rationale behind embracing Periyar when he wanted to follow Anna’s ‘one race, one god’.
“Anna has been an ardent follower of Periyar’s principles. If he wanted to avoid Periyar’s atheism and follow the rest, he (Vijay) could have directly chosen Anna as their party’s ideologue. It shows his lack of clarity in ideology,” Thirumavalavan Tuesday told the media.
Political analyst Arun said in the political arena, Vijay has made his first big splash by creating intrigue and starting a dialogue. But, for any real impact, Vijay will have to follow up with a lot of groundwork over the next 18 months.
“Everything he said at his first conference is just the start of his journey. His impact can only be measured based on his groundwork in the next 18 months before the 2026 assembly election,” he added.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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