Chennai:
‘Thalapathy‘ Vijay is safe, for now. The superstar actor – who upended Tamil Nadu politics by leading his Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam to victory in last month’s election, breaking the DMK and AIADMK‘s 62-year stranglehold on the state’s political landscape – was confirmed Wednesday as the new chief minister after winning a dramatic trust vote.
Vijay was backed by 144 lawmakers while 22 stood against and five sat on the fence. This was after the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and its 59 MLAs walked out, and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s 47 were told to vote against.
“The whistle (the TVK’s election symbol) has changed history,” Vijay, who has now completed his cinema-to-politics arc, said after the result. “We will call ourselves a minority government… a government that will protect the rights of minorities.”
The trust vote was required since the TVK did not have a majority after results were announced May 4. Vijay’s party swept 108 of 234 seats – an incredible return for a young party in a state driven by a political binary – but 10 short of the mark.
The TVK quickly received support from the Congress – five seats – and, after four days of bargaining and suspense, secured eight more seats from the Left front, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, and the Indian Union Muslim League.
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The numbers
The TVK had 105 MLAs; the party lost one vote to the Speaker’s chair, a second because Vijay resigned from one of the two seats he won, and a third because Sreenivasa Sethupathy R’s one-vote victory from Tiruppattur has been challenged.
All 105, however, turned up and voted for Vijay.
Allies providing outside support – the Congress, the CPI, CPM, VCK, and IUML – had offered 13 seats between them, and delivered on that promise. A 14th vote came from the TTV Dhinakaran-led Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam’s sole MLA.
Allied votes, therefore, gave the TVK 119 – a wafer-thin margin of victory.
The boost (perhaps not entirely unexpected) was from the AIADMK’s two dozen lawmakers.
At the other end of the vote, the 17 AIADMK MLAs still in Palaniswami’s camp voted against Vijay, while four from the Pattali Makkal Katchi, part of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance, and the BJP’s own lone MLA, took up a neutral position.
The vote has been settled but the bigger story is the split within the AIADMK camp.
The AIADMK vote
So, 24 AIADMK MLAs voted for Vijay and a 25th (also seen as pro-TVK) abstained, defying party boss Edappadi K Palaniswami’s order and underlining a rift that threatens to tear one of the state’s two big Dravidian giants apart.
The rift became apparent last week as the AIADMK jostled for power and relevance, for this is a party in the doldrums amid a leadership crisis and a fourth consecutive election defeat.
One faction – led by CV Shanmugam – camped out at a Puducherry resort demanding EPS, as Palaniswami is called, announce support for the TVK. Publicly the demand was shut down and the party insisted ‘all is well’. EPS loyalists claimed the Puducherry camp was a precaution against ‘poaching’ by the TVK, which at the time was still hunting for eight seats.
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But behind the scenes the Shanmugam faction continued to grumble.
On Tuesday those complaints broke the surface with reports a group of AIADMK MLAs – led by Shanmugam and another senior leader, SP Velumani – was scheduled to meet Vijay and extend party support.
AIADMK boss EPS (L) under presure after 25 party MLAs defied instructions in Vijay trust vote (File)
In comments to the press, Shanmugam pointed to four defeats – three to the DMK and one to the TVK – as his motivation, and to whispers of what would have been politically unprecedented – the DMK and AIADMK joining hands to defeat Vijay. He also stressed he had no intention of splitting the party, a statement that now sets up a dramatic internal battle with the EPS.
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The AIADMK responded swiftly; a long X post slammed the breakaway leaders, reminding them they had been elected on party tickets. It also accused Shanmugam, Velumani and a third rebel leader of having ‘begged’ the TVK for ministerial posts.
The AIADMK story
The AIADMK dominated Tamil politics from 2006 to 2021 – party icon and ex-chief minister J Jayalalitha wrote the script for that success – but fell away after she died in December 2016. The party won the 2016 election thanks to a massive sympathy wave but lost the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the 2021 Assembly election to the DMK.
Last month’s defeat compounded leadership and existential problems facing EPS, who has been accused of prioritising his poltiical gains, and those of his inner circe, over what is best for the party.