By Ananya Sharma 
Chennai, May 5: When Vijay won 108 seats on Monday, most people expected him to come out swinging. Victory speech, big promises, maybe a dig or two at the parties he just buried. That is what Tamil Nadu politics usually looks like the morning after a landslide.
Instead, he logged onto X and said thank you to Narendra Modi.
Yeah. That Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister of India. The man whose party, the BJP, has spent years trying and mostly failing to crack Tamil Nadu. Vijay thanked him, kept it warm, kept it short, and in doing so told everyone paying attention exactly what kind of politician he intends to be.
So What Did He Actually Write?
The post went up Tuesday morning. Simple language, no drama. “Thank you, Hon’ble @PMOIndia, for your greetings,” Vijay wrote. “The well-being of our people remains our only goal. Transcending politics, we shall focus on the State’s progress and the welfare of people of Tamil Nadu. We look forward to the Union Government’s support in this endeavour.”
Read it once and it sounds like a polite response. Read it again and the last line jumps out. “We look forward to the Union Government’s support.” That is not small talk. That is a man who just won a historic election telling New Delhi, very calmly, that he wants to work with them and not against them.
For Tamil Nadu, that is actually a big deal.
Why This Is Bigger Than It Looks
People outside the state sometimes miss how tense the Chennai-Delhi equation has been over the years. The DMK government under MK Stalin that just lost power had its share of public fights with the Centre. Rows over money. Rows over NEET. Rows over Hindi imposition. The relationship was functional at best and openly hostile at worst.
Vijay is signalling something different right from day one. He is saying, look, we are not going to do this the old way. Tamil Nadu needs central funds. It needs clearances from the Union government for big infrastructure projects, for health schemes, for everything from highways to ports. Picking fights with Delhi might make for good television but it slows everything down. Vijay, it seems, has already done that math.
And the fact that he did this publicly, on social media, where everyone could see it, was deliberate. This was not a quiet phone call. This was a statement of intent.
Modi Called It First, To Be Fair
It was actually Modi who set the tone on Monday itself, posting: “Congratulations to TVK on their impressive performance. The Centre will leave no stone unturned in furthering the progress of Tamil Nadu and the well-being of its people.”
Now, the BJP did not exactly do well in Tamil Nadu. The NDA was nowhere close to forming the government. So Modi congratulating the party that effectively swept the floor with everyone else took some people by surprise. But read it for what it is. New Delhi recognises that a new power centre has arrived in the south. Better to build a bridge now than start with a fight.
Vijay responded the next morning. Both sides chose the same lane. That matters.
Rahul Gandhi Also Jumped In
Rahul Gandhi called Vijay directly after the results. Vijay thanked him publicly too, writing: “My sincere thanks to the Honorable Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha for the call and kind wishes. We shall remain committed to excellence in public service, and preserving the cultural ethos of our state.”
So within one day of winning, Vijay had acknowledgements from both the ruling party at the Centre and the principal Opposition. Both wanted to be on good terms. That alone tells you how dramatically the political ground in Tamil Nadu has shifted.
What Actually Happened on Monday, For Anyone Just Tuning In
Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam is barely a few years old. It has no legacy, no inherited voter base, no decades of party machinery behind it. It was built by a film star who most people assumed would either crash badly or scrape through with a decent but modest debut.
Instead, TVK won 108 seats out of 234. Vijay himself won from two constituencies, Perambur and Trichy East. Not one seat. Two. At the same time.
The DMK lost. The AIADMK lost. Two parties that have together dominated Tamil Nadu politics for over six decades were both pushed aside in the same night. For the first time ever, Tamil Nadu is going to have a government that is neither DMK nor AIADMK. That is genuinely unprecedented. People who have followed this state’s politics for thirty years are still blinking at the numbers.
Vijay himself described the result as a “miracle” that has shaken Indian politics. Coming from the man who caused it, that is either modesty or honest shock. Probably a bit of both.
He Still Needs a Few More Seats
Here is the catch. 108 is a massive number for a debut. But the magic mark in a 234-seat house is 118. Vijay is ten seats short of a majority on his own.
So while the celebrations were absolutely earned, the actual work of building a government has now begun, and it is not the fun part.
One option being explored involves bringing on board Congress with 5 seats, PMK with 4, IUML and VCK with 2 each. That gets TVK to a workable number. Managing that many partners in a cabinet is messy, but doable.
The wilder story is the AIADMK angle. An AIADMK MLA-elect named Leemarose Martin said on Tuesday that party chief Edappadi K Palaniswami was in talks to offer outside support to TVK. Nobody has confirmed it officially yet. But if it happens, the math gets very comfortable, and very fast. TVK plus AIADMK would be around 155 seats combined. That is not a fragile majority. That is a stable government.
The political irony would be thick enough to cut with a knife. Vijay built TVK partly as an alternative to the old Dravidian system. And now one half of that old system might end up keeping him in power. Tamil Nadu politics has always had a taste for the dramatic.
TVK has already formally written to Governor Rajendra Arlekar seeking an appointment to begin the government formation process. The clock is ticking.
Swearing In May Happen as Early as Wednesday
Sources told ANI that Vijay’s swearing-in ceremony as Chief Minister could take place on May 7, most likely at Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai. Nothing official from the party yet. But the date is being thrown around seriously enough that preparations are reportedly already in motion.
A lot depends on how quickly the alliance arithmetic gets sorted. These things have a way of dragging on. But given the momentum, given the scale of the mandate, and given that Vijay seems intent on moving fast, May 7 is being treated as a real possibility.
The Bigger Picture
Whatever your politics, step back and look at what just happened here. A man who, two years ago, was still best known for blockbuster films and a massive fan following decided to enter politics. He was told it was too late, too risky, too ambitious. The established parties dismissed him. The commentators hedged their bets.
He won over a hundred seats on the first try.
And on the morning after, instead of celebrating loudly, he sent a considered, thoughtful message to the Prime Minister asking for cooperation. Not confrontation. Cooperation.
Whether that tone survives the pressures of actual governance, the budget battles, the coalition negotiations, the inevitable controversies that come with running a state of 80 million people, nobody knows yet. Governance is much harder than campaigning. The promises made on the trail will need delivery. The partners brought on board will need managing.
But the opening move was calm, confident, and surprisingly mature for a politician on his very first day after his very first election.
The thank-you to Modi was the easy part. Everything from here gets harder.
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- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
