Will Vijay’s CM Googly Win TN Poll Match?

Vijay is counting on what was once proclaimed as his last filmi outing, Jana Nayagan, or ‘People’s Hero’, to do the trick for him, when it releases on January 9, 2026, only months before the assembly poll

- N SATHIYA MOORTHY

Actor-politician Vijay’s Tamizhaga Vetri Kazhagam’s (TVK) formal announcement to field him as its chief ministerial candidate in ext year’s Tamil Nadu assembly elections has multiple ramifications for the evolving poll scene in the state.

First and foremost, it ends speculation of the TVK joining the ALADMK-led BJP-NDA Opposition combine, which was touted as being the ‘victorious alliance’, if formed.

It means that the state is poised for a four-cornered contest, with the ruling DMK-led INDIA bloc and another filmmaker Seeman’s entrenched Naam Tamizhar Katchi (NTK) already in the fray ~ of course alongside the AIADMK combine.

Secondly, the ruling DMK’s allies like the VCK, MDMK and the two Communist parties had silently worked on the premise that a possible delay on the announcement of Vijay’s chief ministerial announcement could be used to privately speculate on the AIADMK snapping ties with the BJP and joining hands with the TVK.

They could then either expect the DMK to be more generous in seat-sharing, or they could actually explore the possibility of joining the ‘new, stillborn front’.

Ofcourse, even then some of them can hope to sign up with the TVK, if and only if Vijay could muster massive crowds when he kick-starts his statewide poll campaign, now set to commence in September. But that's a different story.

No one is talking about the DMK’s Congress ally, in turn the national leader of INDIA combine, having any such ideas, but that by itself is unlikely to alter the DMK’s tough-talking on seat-sharing.

As coincidence would have it, the TVK’s announcement on chief ministerial candidate comes at a time when the DMK’s Stalin and AIADMK's Edappadi K Palaniswami have near-simultaneously launched their poll campaign.