Before the Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections 2026, actor-turned-politician Vijay had promised to change the status quo. He launched his party, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), just two years before the polls. Few outside the state expected him to make a huge dent in the state’s political system, dominated by the DMK and AIADMK for decades. Opinion polls gave TVK fewer than 10 seats and no more than 15% of the vote share. In the end, TVK garnered almost 35% of the total votes and won 108 seats, just 10 shy of a majority. Vijay is now poised to take over as the next Chief Minister, provided he can get outside support before the floor test.
Vijay outdoes even the great MG Ramachandran
Historically, actors-turned-politicians have done well in the state. MG Ramachandran is the gold standard there. His protege Jayalalithaa followed suit. But since then, megastars haven’t had the political debuts they’d have liked. Kamal Haasan and Captain Vijaykanth were reduced to extras in the political landscape. Even in Andhra and Telangana, nobody could replicate NT Rama Rao’s spectacular debut. Chiranjeevi had to shut his political shop and return to films. Pawan Kalyan suffered defeat and ignominy before he could make a comeback years later. Vijay has outdone his predecessors in that regard.
The most successful political debut for an actor in India was in 1983 when NT Rama Rao contested the Andhra Pradesh Assembly Elections. He registered 46% of the popular vote and secured a landslide victory, winning 201 out of the 294 seats in the House. He had followed MG Ramachandran’s blueprint from six years before that. MGR formed the AIADMK, beating Karunanidhi’s DMK in the 1977 Tamil Nadu elections. He won 144 of the 234 seats, with 33% of the vote share. Interestingly, Vijay’s TVK has secured a higher share of the vote despite having to fend off two major parties. But that increased competition has seen its seats come down.
Vijay does what Kamal Haasan couldn’t
Yet, Vijay’s performance is still better than any recent political debut in Tamil Nadu (and even Andhra Pradesh). For instance, Kamal Haasan won no seats in the 2021 elections, getting just 3% of the votes. In 2006, Captain Vijaykanth fared slightly better with 8% of the vote share, but won just one seat. Even Pawan Kalyan, now the Andhra Deputy CM, had a horrid start, winning just 1 seat in his debut. Chiranjeevi was the only actor-politician to have a somewhat respectable political debut, winning 16 seats with his Praja Rajyam Party in the 2009 elections.
How Vijay defied all expectations
But Vijay’s victory is no fluke. It is the result of years of image-building, a carefully crafted political campaign, and some good timing for his political plunge. The first factor helping Vijay was the timing. Unlike Chiranjeevi or Kamal Haasan, Vijay left films to enter politics at the peak of his career. His last eight films have all earned over ₹200 crore at the box office. In the last decade, he has given more blockbusters than the Khans, Prabhas, or even Akshay Kumar. In Tamil Nadu, fans consider their Thalapathy an even bigger name than Rajinikanth himself, something he proved with the success of Leo and GOAT in 2024.
Not only does it make him a more relevant name, but the shift is seen as a conscious choice. Nobody can allege that Vijay is entering politics as his acting career is ‘finished’. That sends a message that he is leaving a fledgling career to serve the people, which is a good narrative to build a political campaign on.
TVK is two years old, but Vijay’s image as Tamil Nadu’s saviour goes back further. For at least ten years, he has worked in mass entertainers with social messaging. In Mersal, he fought medical corruption, while in Theri, he was a cop who fought against warlords and politicians. In Beast, his fight was against terrorists, while in Master, he was a teacher waging a war against drugs. The common theme is always the same: a common Tamil man fighting the people’s battles. This made Vijay the face of the change the youth wanted to see. Half a century ago, MGR and NTR used their demigod-like status from mythological films to mount political careers. Vijay just tweaked it for the 21st century.
But all that alone would not have been possible without a sound strategy from TVK. In Prashant Kishore, they got a man who knows what it takes to win big elections. And with a strong advisory board around him, Vijay picked candidates who were locally relevant and aligned with the party’s image of change. The end result is smart political machinery built on the fandom of one man, but functioning for many reasons, some political, others cultural.