The politics of being Vijay

“I have honesty and courage in my heart. Above all, I have a crowd willing to give their lives for me.”

When 35-year-old Vijay delivered this line in 2010 Tamil film Sura, theatres erupted in applause. The moment crystallised a persona he would carefully refine over the next decade.

Fifteen years later, Vijay has turned a politician and is testing whether that roar can travel beyond the cinema hall and into electoral politics. 

Founded in 2024, the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) is not merely a political party; it is, in many ways, an extension of Vijay’s cinematic universe. And Vijay the politician is a continuation of the persona he crafted on screen.

Over the years, Vijay has built a cinematic image that seamlessly extends into real life. While most stars are seen simply as actors off screen, Vijay continues to be perceived as anna (elder brother), protector, leader, and vigilante – someone close, familiar, and deeply rooted in everyday life.

After Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan, Vijay is perhaps the only contemporary actor to dominate the market with comparable consistency and scale. His immense popularity and on-screen presence led to his fans addressing him as Thalapathy, meaning ‘commander’. 

This persona now forms the foundation of his political project.

Its earliest traces can be found as far back as 2009, when Vijay unveiled a flag for his fan clubs bearing the slogan Unnal Mudiyum, meaning ‘You can do it’. This, according to many fans, was a signal that his ambitions were bound to stretch beyond the silver screen.

For decades, Tamil Nadu’s politics has largely been shaped by a two-party contest: the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) – both born from the Dravidian movement that foregrounded social justice, Tamil identity, and anti-Hindi imposition.

Power has alternated between them since the late 1960s, with smaller parties usually aligning with one side. The DMK currently governs under Chief Minister MK Stalin, while AIADMK remains the chief opposition.

It is into this entrenched bipolar space that Vijay has launched TVK, promising to disrupt a political order long dominated by Dravidian legacy parties.

Vijay’s entry into politics is less sudden than it appears. We spoke with Vijay’s friends, fans, political commentators, researchers, and film industry insiders to understand the actor and his turn to politics.

The question that remains is – can Vijay translate the frenzy around him into political capital in Tamil Nadu’s crowded and competitive political landscape?

The long route from screen to podium

In early 2021, wearing a blue shirt and jeans, Vijay cycled from his Chennai home to the nearest polling booth to vote in the state Assembly elections. Fans followed the actor along the way, causing a traffic jam and prompting police to step in.

Speculation quickly arose that Vijay’s choice of transport was a protest against rising fuel prices under the incumbent AIADMK government. His publicist, however, denied any political intent. 

Yet the image of Vijay on his cycle had already taken on symbolic significance, with many viewing it as his de facto entry into politics.

Director Perarasu, who has known Vijay for over a decade, said that he never thought the actor would enter politics. “Now when I see him speak on stage, he is like a different Vijay. He’s developed the demeanour and oratory required of a politician. Another Vijay has been inside him the whole time.”

Some believe that his political journey began as early as 1994, when his father introduced a 20-year-old Vijay as Ilaya Thalapathy, meaning ‘young commander’, during a movie release. It took 23 years for the prefix ‘young’ to be dropped from his title and he simply became Thalapathy.

Others recall the flag release in 2009.

A few point to 2013, when the release of Vijay’s film Thalaiva (meaning ‘leader’), taglined ‘Time to Lead’, was disrupted by threat letters sent to theatre owners. There was widespread speculation that the then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, known for her authoritarian ways, was unhappy with the phrasing of the tagline.

However, in Vijay’s case, dates matter less than patterns. Across genres and decades, Vijay’s films repeatedly rehearsed his leadership, commitment to justice, and ability to mobilise.

His cousin Supriya B, who runs the consulting firm Glassbox, said that it was inevitable that Vijay would take the plunge into politics. “He was a fun-loving, easy-going boy, and his acting journey did not begin with instant success. But he always had a sense of purpose and a quiet determination to improve himself. Over the years, that sense of responsibility towards people has only grown deeper.”

Sangeetha Krish, a longtime friend of Vijay and a co-star in Varisu (2023), recalls an instance during the shoot when one of them asked him about the rumours that he was going to enter politics.

“There is nothing wrong with at least making an attempt,” was Vijay’s reply.

On October 27, 2024, this long arc found its clearest expression when Vijay walked up to the podium and delivered his first speech as a politician. Drawing a crowd of over five lakh people, it was one of the largest political gatherings in Tamil Nadu’s recent history.

“Isn’t it selfish to just think that only I should live well?” he asked. “Beyond a certain limit, what is one supposed to do with the money we earn? How am I going to repay the people who gave me life?”

It was these questions, he said, that led him to found TVK.

The speech drew heavily on a persona he has carefully cultivated over the years – that of a man shaped by, and devoted to, the women in his life. Referring to “my mothers, my sister, and my friends,” Vijay credited them with playing a foundational role in what he described as his political awakening.

Known to be fiercely private, Vijay made a rare personal confession – “When my own sister Vidhya died, it affected me a lot,” he said in his debut speech.

In 1976, when Vijay was nine, his family was shaken by the death of his two-year-old younger sister. He has rarely spoken about the loss, though those close to him have often described it as a formative moment in his life. He is known to use the number ‘0277’ – Vidhya’s birthday – on his vehicles as a quiet tribute to her memory.

Vijay drew a direct parallel between that personal grief and the death of Anitha, a 17-year-old medical aspirant who died by suicide in September 2017 after failing to secure a seat through the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET). 

Anitha’s death had sparked widespread protests across Tamil Nadu, with critics arguing that the centralised exam disproportionately disadvantaged rural and marginalised students.

“The death of another sister, Anitha, affected me just as much,” Vijay said, referring to his sister and invoking both losses to underline his political resolve. 

He pledged to prioritise women’s safety and education, announcing that his party would be guided by women leaders.

“Don’t worry hereafter. Your son, your brother, your friend, your Vijay has come to the field,” he told the crowd.

Babu (51), a Vijay fan turned TVK functionary from Coimbatore, said that Vijay remembers not only his name but also that of family members and specific details about them. “Unlike other actors, his political entry does not feel abrupt because we have been doing groundwork in the form of social service for close to three decades.”

Among the thousands gathered, many were women – holding party flags, wearing ribbons across their foreheads and chanting Vijay’s name as he spoke.

Pavithra (29), a party worker in Tiruppur, later told TNM that her parents permitted her to work in politics only because it was for Vijay. “He is known for making women feel safe,” she said.

However, journalist Kavitha Muralidharan pointed out the irony of the online harassment unleashed by Vijay’s supporters on those with dissenting opinions, especially women. "While he claims to protect women, which is itself a problematic framing, his fans and cadres aggressively troll women on social media for criticising him. What about protecting women in digital spaces?”

On the night of his party launch, Vijay did not present himself as a radical challenger. Instead, he took on the role of  a protector, invoking duty, gratitude, and kinship. 

Not once during the launch did he outline or elaborate on what ideology or policies the party and he would stand for. Rather he leaned onto the emotional architecture of his films: sacrifice, care, and guardianship.

This is not a new story. It is one that Tamil cinema – and Tamil politics – have told before. MGR was its first and most powerful telling.

The rise, rehearsal, and recall

MG Ramachandran was perhaps the first to successfully blur the lines between cinematic hero and public leader. Widely known as MGR, he was India’s first film actor to become a chief minister, winning three consecutive elections and shaping Tamil politics for over a decade.

When he died in December 1987, Chennai turned into a city in mourning. Television cameras and newspapers captured the scale of grief for the matinee idol-turned-chief minister.

MGR’s transition from cinema to politics established a durable model in Tamil Nadu. Actors such as Jayalalithaa and Vijayakant, and figures like politician M Karunanidhi who was also a scriptwriter, demonstrated how cinematic visibility and cultural capital could be converted into political authority. 

Unsurprisingly, Vijay’s political ascent is frequently compared to the iconic rise of MGR, who did not lose elections even once during his entire career.

Author R Kannan, who has written two political biographies including one on MGR, noted that while MGR was an unmatched crowd puller in his time, today Vijay is the only contemporary figure capable of mobilising gatherings of a comparable scale. 

“Even ruling parties and the opposition struggle to draw crowds like this,” he said.

Film historian Theodore Baskaran, however, cautioned against reading the parallel too literally.

MGR’s electoral success, he argued, was historically specific. “His fan base was politically homogenous, largely drawn from the DMK,” Baskaran said. “Vijay’s popularity exists in a very different context – one where ideology is thinner, and the link between cinematic authority and political action is more symbolic than institutional.”

Kannan echoed this distinction, pointing to the radically altered media landscape in which Vijay’s appeal is unfolding. “In the age of WhatsApp, television, and the internet, mobilising crowds without any visible organisational machinery is remarkable,” he said. “With MGR, there were clear associations and networks on the ground. That kind of structure is not yet visible in Vijay’s case.”

While MGR’s death cleared the stage for a new generation of male stars, the grammar of on-screen heroism he established remained largely intact. His films had trained audiences to recognise leadership through familiar cues: the hero as saviour, disciplinarian, and benefactor.

Actors like Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan built their stardom by working within and expanding this MGR-era masculine ideal.

Over time, a handful of male actors began to tentatively experiment with more subversive versions of masculinity. Yet across genres and decades, key patterns endured.

The male protagonist continued to occupy the moral centre of the narrative universe. His arc typically involved confronting corruption, disciplining communities, or rescuing women from harm, with violence framed as a necessary and justified intervention.

Women largely appeared in relation to this authority – cast as love interests, sisters, or mothers. Their vulnerability kicked off the plot, and protecting them became a key way men proved their masculinity on screen.

It was within this cinematic landscape that Vijay made his acting debut.

His first film Naalaiya Theerpu (1992) armed him with political dialogue and physical authority in public space.

But this ‘tough Vijay’ image didn’t fully stick. The decade of his arrival also saw the rise of a softer mode of heroism – one that made room for male vulnerability. The hero remained patriarchal, but he now wept, suffered, and, at times, chose sacrifice over dominance.

Vijay gravitated towards this shift.

His characters turned more thoughtful and introspective. They put family first, endured humiliation, stayed emotionally restrained, and picked reconciliation over fights.

It is this Vijay that established him as one of the most popular stars in Tamil Nadu.

From the early 2000s, his films returned to more physically dominant heroes – one who dispatched villains with ease. But this masculinity was carefully calibrated. Violence was reserved only for antagonists; and with family, lovers, and the community, his characters remained restrained and gentle.

“To understand Vijay, you first have to understand his father,” said film researcher and author Mohamed Ilyas R. Vijay’s father SA Chandrasekhar, a successful Tamil film director-producer with significant industry clout, carried political ambitions long before his son did.

In the 1970s, Ilyas noted, Chandrasekhar was part of Tamil cinema’s own ‘angry young man’ moment, directing films that were openly political.

During MGR’s tenure as chief minister, this brought him into direct conflict with the state.

His 1987 film Needhikku Thandanai, scripted by DMK patriarch Karunanidhi, became a flashpoint. Along with a few other satirical films critical of ministers, it provoked MGR’s government into attempting a sweeping amendment to the Tamil Nadu Cinemas Regulation Act – one that would have granted the state powers to ban such films and jail their makers.

Though the bill was passed in the Assembly, it was ultimately stalled after the Governor refused assent.

Chandrasekhar’s political ambitions for his son surfaced early. “Even his first film (Naalaiya Theerpu) for his son positioned him as someone who would lead,” Ilyas said.

According to Ilyas, between the mid-2000s and early 2010s, Vijay became a constant presence in the homes of Tamilians. Being able to watch movies on television, in one's own living room with family, played a crucial role in shaping Vijay’s image. 

By the late 2000s, Vijay had become Tamil cinema’s most bankable star.

Between 2006 and 2009, production houses linked to political power, including Red Giant Movies and Sun Pictures, backed his films. Several of these companies had close ties to sitting MLAs and ministers. 

This reflected Vijay’s status, Ilyas said, as a dependable economic and cultural force.

As his market value rose, so did the political charge of his screen persona. Tamil cinema has long relied on such moments. Unlike Bollywood’s romance-heavy vocabulary, Kollywood’s mass films are built around messaging – heroes speak directly to power, to the public, to their own followers.

Yet not all of his overtly political films succeeded at the box-office. He began delivering a string of blockbusters as a romantic, family-orientated hero.

For example, in Shahjahan (2001), he plays Ashok, a gentle singer who helps strangers fall in love, sacrifices his own love without resentment, and accepts rejection with grace.

“He is one of my favourite characters. He was very cute, wearing a gold chain and I loved that look,” says Ramkumar, a long-time Vijay fan club member who has now become a spokesperson for TVK.

Ashok does not fight villains or deliver punch dialogues. When he realises the woman he loves doesn’t feel the same, he makes peace with it instead of the retaliatory stalking common to Tamil cinema.

Shahjahan’s success cemented Vijay’s reputation as a romantic hero built on restraint and sacrifice rather than violent bravado. 

This notion of sacrifice remains a recurrent refrain in Vijay’s movies, sometimes to absurd lengths. 

In Minsara Kanna (1999), Vijay plays a wealthy NRI who conceals his identity and moves with his entire family to work as domestic help in the mansion of a man-hating industrialist, all to win over her younger sister. In the end, the ultimate proof of his love is ‘sacrifice’ — a billionaire willing to wash dirty plates.

Vijay’s political persona speaks of sacrifice too. He often mentions at rallies how he quit cinema when he was at its peak, when he didn’t have to.

“I entered politics to protect my land and people from any harm,” he declared fiercely on January 25. He added that his career, and by extension his wealth, leaves him with no reason to become corrupt like other politicians.

This defies logic. Wealthy politicians have no compunctions about being corrupt. But the line has a cinematic flair – one that only a righteous hero could say.

Thyagam is the word TVK functionary Sangeetha uses too; the Tamil word for ‘sacrifice’. She’s the party’s social media joint coordinator for Chennai. “He quit films for politics because he realised no one else would step up – if not him, then who?”

“Only someone who truly wants to do good will be willing to sacrifice so much,” Sangeetha said and added that this sacrifice stems from “his genuine love” for the people.

The ‘sacrifice’ phase built a different kind of intimacy. “That’s where the image of ‘one of our own’ really formed,” Ilyas said.

Robin Jeffery (23), a freelance cameraman and editor, grew up in a Vijay-loving household. “Everyone in my family is a Vijay fan,” he said. “For my mother, it was his romantic era. For me, it was his action films. My mom is the reason I watched his romantic films.”

The turn to action came with Ghilli (2004), where Vijay is a kabaddi player who risks everything to rescue a woman from a powerful abuser. The film became a cult hit and fixed him firmly in the action hero mold.

The 2005 successes of Thirupaachi and Sivakasi pushed this image further. Directors like Perarasu framed him as both protector and punisher – a guardian who enforced justice when systems failed.

In Thirupaachi, director Perarasu builds suspense with Vijay’s late arrival at a village festival for Ayyanar, a local god of protection. As a blacksmith, Vijay finally shows up carrying a ceremonial machete for the deity.

The director recalled how these scenes, culminating with ‘Nee Endha Ooru’ – a hit song that talks about brotherhood beyond caste, region, or politics – were not part of the original script. “They were written after Vijay agreed to act in the film. The scenes and song were befitting of a mass hero and his fan base.”

“I wanted Thirupaachi to feel like a Rajini movie. That’s why that sequence is similar to Annamalai (1992). Even Vijay’s costume and the viboodhi (holy ash) on his forehead consciously mirror Rajini’s appearance in Annamalai,” he says referring to Rajinikanth, Tamil cinema’s most iconic superstar, revered for his larger-than-life screen presence and decades-long cultural influence.

However, not all the movies have aged well.

Sivakasi, though a major hit, is deeply misogynistic. In one scene, Vijay’s character publicly shames the heroine, played by Asin, for wearing shorts and a tank top, saying she would have been “worshipped like a goddess” in a saree. This kind of moral policing was common in Kollywood at the time, used to signal the hero’s righteousness – and it was cheered as part of the ‘protector of society’ fantasy.

By the time Vettaikaaran released in 2009, a clear pattern had set in: institutions fail and justice arrives through one determined man.

His later films sharpened this arc.

Thalaivaa (2013) casts him as a reluctant heir who steps up to restore order. By Sarkar (2018), his political ambitions are unmissable: a tech billionaire returns from the US to take on electoral fraud and dynastic power.

In Master (2021), Bigil (2019), and Beast (2022), Vijay appears as a leader of young people from marginalised backgrounds – a teacher, a coach, the head of a group of misfits. 

Writer and film critic Sowmya Rajendran said that cinema in Tamil Nadu is often seen as a launchpad for politics. Film, she added, has been “a powerful medium to spread ideology and build public image”. But she noted that popularity on the big screen doesn’t always guarantee political success.

The emergence of the political actor

After Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016 and Karunanidhi’s exit from active politics, Tamil Nadu entered a period of flux.

The 2017 Jallikattu protests highlighted a generational shift. Public anger against the ban on the traditional Tamil bull-taming sport erupted into larger disgruntlement with the Union government on other issues, including the Kaveri water crisis, demonetisation, and negative north Indian perceptions of the Tamil identity.

It was a leaderless mobilisation across Tamil Nadu that forced the state to amend the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act brought by the Union Government and restore the traditional bull-taming sport.

“The episode exposed both a vacuum in leadership and a young public looking for an alternative,” Ilyas said.

That same year, Mersal by filmmaker Atlee released, blending a vigilante tale of medical corruption with a father’s story rooted in Tamil pride, amplified by the anthem-like song Aalaporaan Thamizhan.

Vivek, the lyricist of the song, said that it was a hit as it was shaped directly by the mood on the streets. “We had a discussion about incorporating those emotions into the song as it was a historical movement. We wanted to bring out a song that embodies and expresses Tamil pride.” 

Together, they sharpened Vijay’s image as a singular moral crusader.

Mersal waded into political territory in ways that soon extended beyond the screen. Vijay’s character took on the Goods and Services Tax (GST), which was introduced that year. He directly challenged the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government’s priorities on healthcare. 

The dialogue against GST drew backlash from the BJP, followed by attacks on Vijay’s Christian identity. He responded by signing public statements with his full name – Joseph C Vijay – a gesture of defiance that soon bled into his screen persona. He played characters with Christian names in his successive films.

In Bigil, he plays dual roles – Michael Rayappan, a footballer, and his father, Rayappan, a violent yet benevolent patriarch to an entire neighbourhood. 

Unlike Rajinikanth or Kamal Haasan, who separate their screen and political personas, Vijay collapses the distance.

In Velayudham’s (2011) climax, as thousands of people surge forward to attack the villain, an overhead shot reveals their movement resolving into Vijay’s face. The hero no longer merely represents the people; he is quite literally assembled out of them.

“In monarchy, the king embodies the people. In political modernity, the question is unresolved – who represents political will? The party? The election? The voter? Vijay’s cinema repeatedly offers a shortcut where representation collapses into a single body,” Tamil writer Nishanth said.

Journalist Kavitha Muralidharan explained that Vijay’s films allowed audiences to place themselves inside the hero’s journey. “His suffering becomes their suffering. That emotional access is what creates identification,” she said. 

Ilyas cautioned against crediting Vijay alone for the creation of this image arc. “This isn’t about a single actor or director,” he said. “It’s about the political culture we’ve built. If we ask why Vijay resonates, we also have to ask what kind of polity produces that desire.”

Another layer of Vijay’s image is built through music.

In Tamil cinema, opening songs do more than entertain – they let stars speak directly to their audience, allowing them to signal allegiance, ambition, and arrival. 

“The hero isn’t just dancing. He is sending a message,” said Ilyas. “Tamil audiences instinctively understand this grammar.”

Lyrics in songs like Naa Ready, Verithanam, and Vaa Thalaivaa blur the boundary between performer and leader.

Robin, a film editor and a Vijay fan, explained that during audio launches it often felt like Vijay was personally addressing his fans.

Even after stepping away from films, Vijay continues to lean on his screen image, shaping himself as a ‘messiah’. But, as Kavitha pointed out, “once you enter public life, you can’t rely on image alone, you have to physically be with people.”

That, she argued, is where Vijay diverges from MGR. “MGR was larger than life too, but he met people constantly, stood with them, and built an everyday presence. Vijay, by comparison, remains distant.”

Despite being a fan of the actor, Robin is unable to fully trust Vijay the politician. “At first he said he wouldn’t speak like other politicians. But what he says on stage now sounds like film dialogues. That’s not necessary,” he said. 

Nishanth said we need to shift responsibility. “We keep talking about Vijay’s intentions. That’s the easy question,” he said. “The harder one is why people want him to embody their politics. If we place so much power in Vijay and his cinema, what does that reveal about us?”

Following that line of inquiry means looking beyond cinema. The key question, Nishanth said, is: “Why does the public desire someone like Vijay? What is in our political culture that produces this longing?”

Confronting this, Nishanth said, is difficult, because “it risks questioning the foundations of our current polity.”

Family and fans

In Tamil Nadu, fan associations for male stars go beyond casual fandom. They handle film promotions, coordinate publicity, and organise fan activities. Over time, many also take on social work – blood donation drives, charity events, and welfare initiatives – sometimes with the actor’s direct participation.

In Vijay’s case, fan clubs began forming as early as 1993. Perarasu said it was Vijay’s father, SA Chandrasekhar, who oversaw these associations while the actor focused on his film career.

By the late 1990s, the clubs had become highly structured, even organising weekly meetings between fans and the actor. “One of the prior conditions for working with Vijay was that there should be no shoots scheduled for Sunday,” Perarasu said.

By 2024, reports estimated that Vijay had over 85,000 fan units across Tamil Nadu.

In 2009, Chandrasekhar consolidated several fan chapters into a welfare organisation named the Vijay Makkal Iyakkam (VMI). Iyakkam translates to ‘movement’. Its stated goal was to mobilise Vijay’s fans for social work. 

“Fan clubs are always cultivated as a political base in Tamil Nadu and philanthropy is a crucial part of the state politics. Vijay is a complete political material,” Ilyas said. 

While fan clubs were engaged in welfare activities on the ground, they metamorphosed into something more sinister in digital spaces. Made up primarily of teenage boys and young men, these groups gained notoriety for harassing people online – from other actors and their fans to even the mildest critics. Everyone was fair game.

Kavitha Muralidharan recalled a piece she wrote in 2017 when the BJP was targeting Vijay over his dialogues in Mersal, in which she talked about the pressure to support him despite concerns about how his films portray women. 

“I was met with a barrage of abusive comments. Years later, a friend of mine, an activist, criticised Varisu for reinforcing familial stereotypes and not being particularly empowering for women. She too endured days of sustained online abuse,” Kavitha said.

Kavitha said this is why she is ‘wary’ of Vijay entering politics. “Even as a political figure, he appears to reinforce stereotypes, expecting women to conform to certain roles rather than genuinely advancing their independence or structural empowerment. The behaviour of his fans often feels like an extension of this worldview,” she said.

No matter what the perception was online, the fan clubs started becoming more organised and structured with every passing year. In November 2020, Chandrasekhar registered VMI with the Election Commission of India (ECI) as a political party.

This is when the family rift unfolded in public. For someone who has long spoken of parents as equal to God, what followed after Chadrasekhar’s political act was jarring. Vijay asked his fans not to join VMI.

“I request my fans to not join the political party that my father has started or work for it,” Vijay said in a statement issued the same day. He warned legal action against anyone misusing his name or image and clarified that there was “no connection between that party and us or our ‘iyakkam’”.

Chandrasekhar dismissed the statement and said he had formed the party independently, without Vijay’s consent. “My intention was to encourage the kind souls who have been doing good work in the Vijay Makkal Iyakkam for the past 25 years. It is not to contest elections,” he told News18 Tamil.

Even earlier, when he managed Vijay’s fan associations, he said that he had not sought his son’s permission. “I’ve been doing all this for his own good,” Chandrasekhar said, framing his decisions as his “duty”.

In 2021, the dispute escalated legally. Vijay filed a civil suit restraining his parents from conducting meetings in his name. 

In September that year, Chandrasekhar stepped back, telling TNM, “I have decided I want to have no more part in politics or the iyakkam (movement) or in any political activity in these late years of my life. That’s all. It’s very simple.” He announced that VMI, the political party, had been dissolved.

Speaking to TNM, a senior cinema journalist said that in order to control his father's involvement Vijay started to decide certain things for himself. “But his father, who was controlling the activities of VMI, wanted to do something for fans and supporters of Vijay,” he added.

On the ground, however, the welfare association endured.

In October 2021, during Tamil Nadu’s local body elections, 169 independent candidates campaigned using Vijay’s photograph and the VMI flag. Of them, 129 were elected.

One of the candidates who stood in that election told TNM that Chandrasekhar stayed away from election activities. “VMI said we can use Vijay’s name, photo, and flag. We were told to inform the iyakkam of who is contesting,” he said.

Though he did not win, he said the successful candidates were later invited to meet Vijay. “He invited them, congratulated them, and assured them of any support they need for the service of people.”

When Vijay formally launched TVK in February 2024, VMI was absorbed into the party as one of its wings, with many members registering as TVK cadre.

TVK spokesperson Ramkumar said that after Chandrasekhar stepped away in 2021, Vijay himself assumed control. “All orders came from Thalapathy and were implemented on the ground by Bussy Anand,” he said. Bussy Anand is TVK’s general secretary and Vijay’s long-time associate.

As Vijay stepped decisively into politics, the father-son rift appeared to recede. 

“There’s only one difference between god and fathers; you can see fathers with your own eyes,” Vijay said in an interview in 2022, declining to elaborate further.

In 2025, during the audio launch of Jana Nayagan, touted to be Vijay’s last movie, attended by over 90,000 fans, the reconciliation was staged theatrically. As Chandrasekhar finished his speech, Vijay ran across the stage and embraced him. Controlled fires lit the walkway, drums thundered through the venue, and the crowd erupted.

Despite his immense public visibility, little is known about Vijay’s private life. He married Sangeetha Sornalingam in 1999, reportedly a fan he met in London. The couple have largely stayed away from the media, with Sangeetha rarely appearing at public events.

In July 2025, rumours surfaced that the couple had separated. Soon after, speculation emerged linking Vijay to a leading female actor. Neither rumour has been addressed by Vijay.

WFH politician

For over a decade, Vijay avoided press interactions, maintaining an air of mystery. 

“You can never gauge what he is thinking. I have never seen him extremely happy or extremely sad,” actor Sangeetha said.

Everyone we spoke to called Vijay an introvert, one close friend who did not want to be quoted said, ‘extreme introvert’.

Lyricist Vivek also recalls the introverted nature of the actor. Saying that he met Vijay for the first time on the sets of Mersal (2017), Vivek said that Vijay was standing in a corner observing the shoot. “Though he did not know me, he came up to me and interacted with me. He is sharp and patient and no matter what, he is calm.”

A majority of his seemingly more candid public appearances have been restricted to the speeches he gives at the audio launches of his films. 

The moments he stepped into the limelight, apart from acting, appear to be carefully chosen. In 2017, Vijay met the family of Anitha, the Dalit medical aspirant who had died by suicide after she was unable to clear NEET. 

The same year, he made another political gesture by extending his support for the pro-Jallikattu protest. He released a video with the hashtag #JusticeforJallikattu, making him one of the first big Kollywood stars to show solidarity for the cause.

The year marked the first time Vijay came to be at direct loggerheads with the BJP over his film Mersal.

But what may have truly infuriated the BJP were Vijay’s lines condemning the asphyxiation deaths of 60 infants at a medical college in Uttar Pradesh that year.

BJP retaliated by attacking Vijay’s Christian identity and the film’s producers were under immense pressure to delete the scene. Unfazed, Vijay’s fans and supporters flooded social media with the hashtag #MersalVsModi.

In 2018, the police opened fire into crowds protesting the Vedanta Sterlite copper smelting plant as they approached the Thoothukudi Collectorate. Thirteen people were killed, including a 17-year-old girl named Snowlin.

The massacre shook the state. Public fury against the AIADMK government, which was in power in the state at the time, erupted again. 

In the days following the tragedy, Vijay travelled to Thoothukudi to meet Snowlin’s mother Vanitha. In 2024, she joined the TVK, saying she had lost faith in both Dravidian parties.

During this entire time, Vijay remained largely uncommunicative with the media. It was only in 2022 that he finally sat down for an interview, not with a journalist but with Nelson Dileepkumar, the director of his film Beast, which was yet to be released. Beast was bankrolled by the DMK-linked Maran family’s Sun Pictures. 

The interview aired on Sun TV, which comes under the Maran family’s Sun Group conglomerate. 

Indirectly addressing the conversation around religion, Vijay confirmed that he is a man of faith. “Church, temple or dargah – I feel the presence of the same divinity.”

His father is Christian and his mother is Hindu. Bringing this up, Vijay added that neither parent had restricted his religious curiosities in any manner. It is in this interview that he made a comment equating fathers and gods.

Vijay had sat down for this conversation just two years before launching his party. When Nelson asked him if “Thalapathy ever intends to become a Thalaivan (leader)”, Vijay simply replied that it would depend on the will of the people who first made him ‘Thalapathy’ as well as the political situation of the time.

Vijay has carried the habit of not interacting with the media but only addressing a crowd from the elevation of a stage into politics. Despite Vijay calling BJP an ideological enemy, there is one thing that remains common between him and PM Modi – neither of them seem to believe in holding press conferences.

Initially Vijay attempted to build his political self by posting photos of himself garlanding images of leaders like Dravidian icon Periyar and Dr BR Ambedkar.

A table, on which photos of these leaders would appear in accordance with their birth or death anniversaries, became the object of memes and reels caricaturing Vijay as a work-from-home politician.

The Hindu’s political journalist B Kolappan said, “Vijay only talks from stages. It’s also important to travel across Tamil Nadu and get the public’s opinions.”

Pointing out how most other politicians do this, Kolappan said, “Vijay thinks he can sit in an ivory tower and do politics. What prevents him from giving press meets?”

In January 2026, NDTV CEO and Editor-in-chief Rahul Kanwal posted a picture with Vijay and tweeted, “NDTV becomes the first media organisation to chat with Tamil Nadu Superstar Vijay … Vijay spoke of his determination to stay the course in the political arena. Far from being media shy, found him willing to engage and answer all manner of questions.”

Two weeks later, India Today’s Consulting Editor Rajdeep Sardesai posted a picture with Vijay. In both cases, Vijay had off-record conversations with the editors, but refused to give an interview. Vijay told the editors that he wasn’t ready for an interview and was still preparing himself.

Noting that Vijay clearly lacks public relations, senior political journalist B Kolappan said, “He is not ready to take unpleasant questions from the media. He seems to think image alone can win elections.”

“The problem with film personalities becoming politicians is they expect the same unquestioning loyalty in politics,” he added.

A litmus test

On September 13, 2025, TVK’s statewide tour started from Trichy. The plan was that Vijay would cover all the 38 districts and end the rally in Madurai by mid-December.

The tour came to a halt on September 27, when he was in Karur. Not for a break but because of one of the worst political tragedies in Tamil Nadu’s recent memory.

Ahead of the rally in Karur, TVK had written to the state police seeking permission to hold a rally within the town limits, estimating an attendance of around 10,000 people. The police rejected the specific locations requested, citing administrative and crowd management concerns, and instead granted permission for a venue along the Karur-Erode highway.

On that day which saw the deaths of at least 41 persons, Vijay was slated to speak at Karur’s Velusamypuram at 12.45 pm but reached only at 7 pm – after over half-a-day’s delay, which was neither anticipated nor communicated.

The crowd had been growing larger and more restless. There were no arrangements for drinking water or food. Even before Vijay arrived, supporters began collapsing from dehydration and exhaustion, forcing ambulances to conduct rescue operations amid the gathering crowd.

By the time Vijay arrived, the venue was already choked. The campaign van could barely move through the crowd. Trailing it were nearly 5,000 supporters on two-wheelers, all trying to squeeze in for a view of the actor-turned-politician.

“It was a human sea,” a TVK cadre from Tenkasi later told us.

As always, Vijay began with his familiar invocation – “En nenjil kudiyirukkum…” — Those who reside in my heart. 

By 7.14 pm, the first call for an ambulance was made.

Visuals of the rally show the crowd surging on one side of the vehicle, straining to catch Vijay’s eye, a movement that could easily be mistaken for exuberant waving. Within minutes, ambulances began cutting through the gathering. Objects, including slippers, were hurled toward the vehicle to draw the actor’s attention. It was quickly evident that something had gone terribly wrong.

The crowd spiralled out of control – people climbed trees and tin sheds, broke into a generator room and triggered a power cut, all in a desperate attempt to breathe.

From atop the van, Vijay began calling out the names of missing children, urging the crowd to part for ambulances and tossing water bottles into the crush. Vijay sought help from the police and quickly disappeared into his vehicle.

It ended with 41 people dead, including nine children, and more than 200 injured.

While the death toll climbed, Vijay had reached Trichy airport and boarded a chartered flight to Chennai. At both airports, he walked past waiting media personnel without comment.

Regardless, the hashtag #StandWithVijay began trending on X.

Initially there was a slew of conspiracy theories by Vijay supporters against the ruling DMK, insinuating that the stampede was orchestrated for political gains.

Before long, a section of the public’s anger turned to Vijay and the TVK. This rage further intensified as he vanished from view for 48 hours.

For a brief moment, it seemed the Karur stampede might bring Vijay’s political experiment to an abrupt end. However, his fans and the party cadre stood by him and insinuated that it was a conspiracy hatched by the ruling party.

When the actor-politician finally broke his silence, it was not on the ground or among the bereaved, but through a five-minute video statement issued from his home.

Vijay spoke like a righteous hero confronting the state itself.

“CM sir, if you want revenge, do it to me. Don’t touch them [the public]. I will either be in my house or my office. Do anything to me,” he said, casting himself as fearless and self-sacrificing, protective of ‘his people’ – a role that we are familiar with.

Suggesting a political vendetta by the DMK, Vijay questioned why a stampede occurred only in Karur when his team had toured five other districts in the state without any incident.

The assertion ignored the fact that the TVK’s rally circuit had already been marked by incidents of misconduct and vandalism.

However, none of these allegations have been proven. The case is now under investigation by the CBI. 

The Vijay in that video was not contrite. There was no apology, no assumption of responsibility. Instead, he leaned into insinuations of conspiracy, allowing doubt to displace accountability.

Public opinion also started changing, with a cinematic, almost darkly absurd speed. It scarcely mattered that Vijay flew the victims’ families to Chennai instead of meeting them in Karur.

One family member later recalled how Vijay held her hand, fell to his knees and cried, asking for forgiveness. “He was as shattered as we were. He had invited us there to offer his condolences, but it was we who ended up consoling him. He said, ‘I am with you always, as a son or as a brother.’”

A father who lost both his children said Vijay hugged their photographs and wept for half-an-hour “as if mourning his own”. Another recalled him falling at their feet, crying. An elderly woman was unequivocal: “Thalaivar should come to power. It doesn’t matter that my son died. Vijay is like my son.”

Few politicians survive a catastrophe this early in their careers. Fewer still are given the indulgence Vijay received. His carefully built on-screen image as a lone protector proved resilient.

When Vijay declared in Sura, “I have a crowd willing to give their lives for me”, few could have imagined how chillingly that line would echo 16 years later, as cinema and reality collapsed into tragedy.

Ideas of death and devotion continue to shadow his fandom. “Before I die, I need to see him at least once,” a woman TVK cadre said in Tenkasi on February 1, showing a tattoo of Vijay’s name. “If I die without seeing him, I’ve told my family to bury me with his photo.”

Election: The main challenge

For all the roar that accompanied his political launch, Vijay’s real test will not be on the stage but at the ballot box.

Tamil Nadu goes to the polls in April-May this year to elect its 234‑member Assembly. The state now has about 6.36 crore registered voters, with women slightly outnumbering men, and over 10 lakh first‑time electors aged 18-19 now eligible to vote.

For TVK, this will be its first real measure of traction – will Vijay’s vast fanbase be converted to electoral support remains uncertain.

Since its launch, Vijay has framed the contest as a direct confrontation with the DMK and ideologically with the BJP. 

Theodore Baskaran pointed to a critical difference from the past. The fanbase that carried MGR into politics, he argued, was politically homogenous and embedded within party networks and ideologies.

“They were not just admirers; they were activists,” Baskaran said. “Cinema gave them a language, and the party gave them a place to practise it.”

Today’s fandom, by contrast, is wider and looser, shaped by digital spaces and fluid loyalties rather than a disciplined political organisation, he added. 

Film editor and long-time fan Harish said Vijay’s fans need to change. “He needs to encourage them to be mature instead of screaming ‘Annan, Annan’ [elder brother] all the time. He must push them to ask more questions. Tell them that they are the Vijay of their street or neighbourhood and that they must tackle local problems with the party’s support.”

Bala and Raja, who are longtime fans, also see the difference between the hero and the political figure. “He spends most of his energy handling fans, not issues.”

A party, Bala said, “can be started without money but not without ideology”.

Some, however, pointed to something more subdued: Vijay’s silence.

Unlike many entrants to public life, Vijay has not arrived with detailed manifestos or a steady stream of briefings. As one political analyst told TNM, the state is still “waiting to see what he stands for, not just who he is.”

With inputs from Shabbir Ahmed.

This report was republished from The News Minute as part of The News Minute-Newslaundry alliance. Read about our partnership here.