Vijay’s TVK makes a go for it alone

The fledgling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), on March 29, 2026, crossed one of the most important stages of the electoral process, by naming candidates for all the 234 Assembly constituencies in the State.

Ever since the initial excitement about the TVK’s entry into the political scene started evaporating after the Karur stampede that killed 41 persons in September last year, the party’s founder C. Joseph Vijay (Tamil actor known only as Vijay) became a target of attack from his critics. Thanks to his party’s litigation, the stampede case was transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from a Madras High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) and a State-constituted enquiry commission. In two spells spread over two months, Mr. Vijay has faced interrogation by the CBI in New Delhi. Meanwhile, the talk of a decisive shift in the TVK’s stand on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which Mr. Vijay had called all along as the “ideological adversary,” began doing the rounds a day before the actor-turned politician left for New Delhi. Sections of the media frantically reported that a host of district secretaries of the TVK had expressed, at an internal meeting held virtually, their preference for an alliance with the BJP.

Mr. Vijay had made it clear at the TVK’s inaugural State-level conference in October 2024, that he was open to having pre-poll alliances and a coalition government, a concept which is anathema to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). Yet, barring the AIADMK and the BJP which had sought to court the TVK, others, including allies of the DMK, stayed aloof in the light of buzz from certain quarters that the Congress and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi might move towards the TVK.

An interesting potpourri

It was against this backdrop that the TVK came out with its list of nominees in one go. As of now, only one more party — the 16-year-old Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) — is contesting in all the seats. Mr. Vijay is contesting from Perambur in north Chennai, once a seat reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs) but now a general constituency with economically vulnerable sections of society living in large numbers, and from Tiruchi East, a seat in the central region of the State with a substantial population of Christians, especially Vellalas (the denomination to which Mr. Vijay’s father S.A. Chandrasekhar belongs), and Muslims. The party has fielded many of its prominent faces in Chennai, including AIADMK’s former veteran, J.C.D. Prabhakar (Thousand Lights), and the TVK’s general secretary ‘Bussy’ N. Anand (T. Nagar).

As per an estimate, about 45% of the candidates —106 nominees — are from other parties. While no one would have anything negative to comment about giving tickets to former School Education Minister K.A. Sengottaiyan and his associate V. Sathyabama, who, as Tiruppur’s MP during 2014-19, took her job seriously in terms of participating in debates (both joined the party about four months ago), Mr. Vijay’s decision with respect to some others caused disquiet among party cadres. There was an element of surprise over the inclusion of two former MLAs of the Dravidian major, Dusi K. Mohan and Reddiyarpatti V. Narayanan and a senior office-bearer of the Congress D. Selvam, all of whom joined the TVK at the last minute. When the TVK founder held a meeting at a hotel in Chennai, sections of party cadres staged a demonstration outside the hotel, protesting against the choice of candidate for K.V. Kuppam, a constituency reserved for SCs in Vellore.

Lack of crowd control

On the first day of filing nominations, Mr. Vijay submitted his papers in Perambur but his plan for campaigning in three Chennai seats suffered a setback as he was not able to cover the third constituency, for which his party blamed the police. While after the Karur stampede, TVK functionaries would be expected to be more meticulous to detail, this campaign incident proves that they have become none the wiser. Instead of blaming the police or officials, the party managers should take a cue from how crowd management was handled during the annual temple festival of Arubathumoovar (idols of the 63 Nayanmars) on the same day in Mylapore smoothly, despite the event being watched by thousands of devotees. Else, one does not have to hazard a great guess about the result.