20 years after Vijayakanth disrupted Dravidian majors, Vijay scales it up

The Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) is all set to form the next government in Tamil Nadu after emerging as the single largest party in the polls. Predictably, many are comparing Vijay’s victory to late Tamil Nadu chief ministers J Jayalalithaa's and MG Ramachandran’s. He will also be compared to actors Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth, both of whom failed to make any political dents. But Vijay’s trajectory is closer, though more massive, to that of Vijayakanth than MGR. Unlike Vijay, MGR began his political career as a party worker. He joined the DMK in 1953 and won as an MLA for the first time in 1967 — the same year the DMK swept to power for the first time. It wasn’t until 1977 that MGR would finally launch the AIADMK and become chief minister. Jayalalithaa was inducted into the AIADMK in 1982 and became the party’s propaganda secretary in 1983. Even after MGR’s death in 1987 and ensuing turmoil in the AIADMK, she emerged as the state’s first woman leader of opposition in 1989. The party was split in two after MGR’s death at the time, but she reunited the two factions and reclaimed the two-leaf symbol frozen by the Election Commission of India (ECI). Actors who’ve tried to replicate MGR and Jayalalithaa’s popularity have repeatedly failed in Tamil Nadu. Much before Kamal’s Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) fizzled out and he went to the Rajya Sabha on the DMK’s ticket, late actor-politician Vijayakant succeeded in upsetting Tamil Nadu’s political equations and challenging the Dravidian majors. In 2006, his Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) contested all 234 Assembly seats. Vijayakant, who had no previous political experience, won in Cuddalore’s Vridhachalam constituency with a margin of over 13,000 votes. Then barely a year old, the DMDK was able to split both the DMK and AIADMK’s votes, winning a vote share of roughly 8%. Though the party did not win any seats in the 2009 general elections, it managed to increase its vote share to around 10%. By 2011, Vijayakant had established himself as the Leader of Opposition after he allied with the AIADMK and won 29 seats. The DMDK’s vote share however dropped. When launching the DMDK in 2005, Vijayakant was also able to mobilise his fan associations into party cadre. The TVK’s cadre, too, were drawn largely from Vijay’s fan association. But myth-making is a part of politics. Vijayakant was fondly referred to as the ‘karuppu MGR’ (dark-skinned MGR) despite their very different routes to power. In a cinematic plot twist, Vijay’s second film, directed and produced by his parents, was Senthoorapandi (1993). The character named Senthoorapandi, however, was not Vijay but Vijayakant in an extended cameo. Vijayakant, fresh from the success of Chinna Gounder (1992), played Vijay’s elder brother and even has a short sequence when his character strongly resembles his Chinna Gounder self.