By Ananya Sharma 
Chennai, May 5: Thalapathy Vijay was popular. The man has been filling cinema halls for thirty years. But winning 108 seats in his very first election? Finishing ahead of the DMK, a party that has been in Tamil Nadu’s blood for six decades? Making MK Stalin lose his own constituency?
That last one still feels unreal.
Stalin lost Kolathur. His own seat. A seat he had held for years. Lost it to a TVK candidate named VS Babu by nearly 9,000 votes. When that result came in, the silence in DMK offices must have been something else entirely.
By the end of counting day, the picture was clear. Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam had arrived. Not as a guest. As the new landlord.
Vijay is now set to take oath as Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister on May 7. The ceremony will be held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai. Security is already being beefed up. The crowd that shows up will probably be unlike anything the stadium has ever seen.
Vijay’s TVK: The Party That Built Tamil Nadu’s New Political Order
Here is the thing people outside Tamil Nadu need to understand. TVK is not some old regional party that finally got its moment. This party barely existed in any real form three years back. Vijay built it from scratch. He left films, stepped into politics, and went to work.
And the work showed.
TVK ran a clean campaign. No inflammatory speeches, no caste-baiting, no dynasty politics. They talked about jobs. About corruption. About giving young people a reason to stay in Tamil Nadu rather than leave for opportunities elsewhere. That message hit hard, especially in cities and towns where educated youth have been frustrated for years, watching the same old faces make the same old promises.
108 seats in a debut election. In a state that had not elected anyone outside the DMK or AIADMK since 1977. Let that sink in.
How Tamil Nadu’s Old Guard Collapsed Before Chief Minister Vijay
The DMK ended up with just 59 seats. Fifty-nine. For context, they came into this election as the ruling party. They had five years in power, reasonable welfare schemes, and the full weight of the government machinery behind them. And they won 59 seats.
The AIADMK did not do much better. Tamil Nadu’s two dominant parties, the ones that have traded power back and forth like a family heirloom for nearly fifty years, both got badly beaten by a first-timer.
Governor Rajendra Arlekar accepted Stalin’s resignation and asked him to stay on in a caretaker role till the new government is sworn in. That is the constitutional process. But the political reality is much simpler. The DMK’s era, at least for now, is over.
Vijay’s Path to Chief Minister: Tamil Nadu Alliance Talks Explained
TVK has 108 seats. They need 118 for a majority. So there is a gap of ten seats to fill before Vijay can walk into the Secretariat with full numbers behind him.
The calls have already started. Congress, PMK, CPI(M), CPI, and VCK are all in the picture as potential alliance partners. Congress has said their leadership will decide. That is politician-speak for yes, we are interested, just let us negotiate a little first.
Vijay has also formally asked to meet Governor Arlekar to stake his claim to form the government. Once that meeting happens and the numbers add up, the invitation comes. The May 7 date suggests the math is already close to working out.
Still, anyone who has watched Tamil Nadu politics knows that alliances here can be fragile. What looks solid on oath-taking day can develop cracks pretty fast once cabinet seats start getting discussed. Vijay’s team will need to be careful about who gets what and how much.
Tamil Nadu’s New Chief Minister Vijay Joins MGR, Jayalalithaa in History
There is a very small list of people in Indian history who made the jump from cinema superstar to Chief Minister and actually governed. MGR did it in this very state. NT Rama Rao did it in Andhra. Jayalalithaa, who started as MGR’s co-star, became one of the most powerful politicians Tamil Nadu has ever produced.
Vijay is now in that list. He is 51, sharp, and clearly has political instincts that even his harshest critics did not fully credit him with. The campaign he ran was not about star power alone. It was organised, focused, and disciplined in a way that surprised a lot of people who expected a flashy but hollow political entry.
That said, running a campaign and running a state are completely different things. Tamil Nadu is not a small responsibility. It is one of India’s most industrialised states, with a complex administration, strong unions, deep caste networks, and a history of demanding accountability from its leaders. The honeymoon period, if there is one, will be short.
Chief Minister Vijay Reaches Out to Modi and Rahul After Tamil Nadu Win
In the hours after the results, Vijay was measured and careful with his words, which in itself was notable.
He thanked Rahul Gandhi for calling to congratulate him and said TVK would stay committed to public service and protecting Tamil Nadu’s culture. He responded to PM Modi’s congratulatory message by saying the welfare of the people is his only goal and that he looks forward to the Union government’s support.
Read those two messages together and you get a sense of the approach. He is not picking fights with Delhi. He is not playing the anti-Centre card that the DMK had been relying on for years. He is keeping the door open. Whether that changes once real governance begins, especially on sensitive issues like NEET, language policy, or state funds, is a different question.
But right now, it is the right note to strike.
What Tamil Nadu Expects From Chief Minister Vijay Starting Day One
For the average Tamil Nadu voter who queued up in April heat to vote for TVK, May 7 is not just a political event. It is a vindication. It is proof that a new face could actually break in. The system was not entirely locked.
There will be enormous expectations on Vijay from day one. Jobs. Prices. Schools. Roads. The things that actually affect daily life. Speeches will carry him for a month, maybe two. After that, the results will do the talking.
The bureaucracy he inherits is experienced but also deeply set in its ways. Changing how a government actually functions, not just who sits at the top, requires patience, the right people around you, and a willingness to push through resistance that will come from within the system itself.
Whether Vijay has all of that, Tamil Nadu is about to find out.
Tamil Nadu Is Watching: Chennai Reacts to Its New Chief Minister Vijay
Walk through any tea shop or auto stand in Chennai today, and the conversation is the same. Excitement in some corners. Cautious optimism in others. A few old-timers are shaking their heads and saying they will believe it when they see real work on the ground.
That is fair. That is how it should be.
But on the morning of May 5, two days before a swearing-in that nobody predicted two years ago, there is an undeniable electricity in the air across Tamil Nadu. Something has changed. Whether it changes for the better depends entirely on what happens after the garlands come off and the real work begins.
For now, Thalapathy Vijay is about to become Chief Minister Vijay.
Tamil Nadu is waiting to see what that actually means.
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Covers Indian politics, governance, and policy developments with over a decade of experience in political reporting.
- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
