A star rewrites the script

Duopoly fatigue and a quiet anger have translated into a massive mandate for Vijay

-  LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN

On April 6, as he filed his nomination in the Perambur constituency and climbed atop his van to launch his campaign, the frenzied crowd roared with enthusiasm. "Confidenta irunga. Naama thaan jeikkirom (Be confident. We are winning)," he told them.

From then on, at every public rally, actor-turned politician C. Joseph Vijay repeated the phrase. That confidence appears to have pushed the DMK and the AIADMK to second and third positions, respectively, in a closely fought election, with his Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) winning 108 seats.

Sensing the public desire for change and repeatedly invoking "confidence" in his speeches, Vijay orchestrated an unprecedented political churn in Tamil Nadu. At his final rally in Chennai, the 51-yearold called for a "whistle revolution".

He urged children to persuade their parents to vote for him and described the election as a "grand change for a generation". To Vijay's own surprise, the electorate opted for change. "There was palpable anger among the people and they wanted to vote out the ruling DMK.

This victory is purely because of the freshness promised by our leader Vijay and his charisma," says TVK election management secretary Aadhav Arjuna, who won from the Villivakkam constituency.

The Tamil Nadu verdict is not merely a change in government; it is a tectonic realignment that has disrupted the five-decade-old dravidian binary. Vijay has achieved what was long deemed impossible: the dismantling of the DMK-AIADMK duopoly that has shaped the state's politics since the late 1960s.

The scale of Vijay's victory is most visible in the urban areas.