Blockbuster debut! Vijay Tamil Nadu’s Gen-nayagan

CHENNAI: MGR, the biggest crossover star from cinema to Tamil Nadu politics, never drank or smoked on screen. He was fair complexioned. For someone who claims to be the next MGR in Tamil Nadu politics, Vijay did – on screen – everything that MGR didn’t: he played an alcoholic professor, a gangster, and a morally conflicted man. Yet, he seems to be on the way to becoming the next MGR in politics.

Vijay was a contrarian through his campaign: he avoided media interviews and did fewer public shows than chief minister M K Stalin and opposition leader Edappadi K Palaniswami. On the last day of the campaign, he blew a whistle (his party symbol) and offered a quid pro quo: “Give me one thing I ask – your vote – and I will give you all you ask for five years.”



When everyone said TVK lacked the organisational strength to match the grassroots connect the Dravidian giants enjoyed, Vijay smirked – and got his social media operators to go full steam. When DMK and AIADMK churned out promos that took potshots at each other and glorified their respective leaders, TVK spin doctors flooded social media with videos of children prodding their parents and grandparents to vote for Vijay. He proved a 5.5-inch screen is good enough to reach 5.7 crore voters across 234 constituencies.

A TOI analysis of the last week of campaigning found that Vijay spoke the least at road shows (35 minutes), while Stalin (356 minutes) and EPS (806) waxed eloquent. When Stalin made 18 speeches and EPS 21, Vijay had spoken just twice. Yet, when we asked an AI tool to rate their appeal based on some 50,000 words they had spoken, Vijay scored better (8 out of 10) than EPS (7.7) and almost caught up with Stalin (8.6).

Vijay’s timing is perfect too. Rajinikanth missed the bus in the mid-1990s, Vijayakanth entered politics in 2005 when M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalithaa were at the peak of their careers. Kamal Haasan, whose appeal was never ‘mass’, fizzled out. Vijay came when Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa had vacated the stage, and EPS was struggling to give a tough fight to Stalin. In the collective public psyche, DMK deserved a worthy rival – and Vijay fit the bill.

MGR became chief minister five years after founding AIADMK. Vijay made it in two years. From the ruins of a political duopoly, a superstar is born.

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