Lights, Camera, Chief Minister: How Vijay Turned Stardom Into Political Power

The man Tamil Nadu calls “Thalapathy” spent three decades winning hearts on screen. Now with 106 assembly seats he has won something far bigger.

Tamil Nadu has always had a soft corner for its film heroes. From M.G. Ramachandran to Jayalalithaa, the state has a long history of turning silver-screen icons into political powerhouses. Now, a new chapter has been written and its hero is Joseph Vijay Chandrasekhar, known simply as Vijay, the man his millions of fans call Thalapathy, meaning “Leader.”

In the 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly Election, Vijay’s party Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) stunned every pundit, every pollster, and every rival. TVK bagged 106 of the 234 assembly seats. The ruling DMK trailed far behind. The AIADMK, which had governed the state for decades, was left scrambling. Most politicians spend years losing before they finally win. Vijay did it in one shot on his very first try.

A Star Born into Cinema

Vijay’s story begins long before any political rally or election manifesto. Born on June 22, 1974, in Chennai, he grew up surrounded by cinema. His father, S.A. Chandrasekhar, is a well-known filmmaker. His mother, Shoba Chandrasekhar, is a playback singer. Acting was almost inevitable.

He started as a child artist in his father’s 1984 film Vetri, meaning “Victory” a title that now reads like prophecy. His early solo career stumbled his 1992 debut Naalaiya Theerpu flopped at the box office. But Vijay was patient. Slowly, film after film, he climbed.

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, films like Kushi, Thulladha Manamum Thullum, and Ghilli transformed him into a mass phenomenon. His on-screen energy equal parts romance, raw action, and righteous fury connected deeply with Tamil audiences. Fans gave him the title “Ilaya Thalapathy” Young Commander which eventually shortened to just Thalapathy.

Bigger Films, Louder Politics

As Vijay’s star grew, his films began carrying stronger messages. Thalaivaa (2013), Kaththi (2014), Mersal (2017), and Sarkar (2018) were not just entertainers they were statements. In Sarkar, he played a businessman who contests elections after exposing electoral fraud. Audiences roared. Critics noticed that the reel and the real were beginning to blur.

In 2010, he delivered a now-legendary dialogue from the film Sura “I have honesty and courage in my heart. Above all, I have a crowd willing to give their lives for me” and theatres erupted. Many say that line was less a character’s words and more a personal declaration.

His blockbuster run continued well into the 2020s. Leo crossed ₹600 crore globally. The Greatest of All Time earned over ₹400 crore despite mixed reviews. His final film, Jana Nayagan meaning “People’s Hero” was made as a cinematic farewell before politics took centre stage. He reportedly earned ₹275 crore for it, making him one of India’s highest-paid actors.

From Fan Clubs to a Political Movement

What made Vijay’s political rise different from Rajinikanth’s unfulfilled promises or Kamal Haasan’s mixed electoral results was groundwork deep, sustained, and patient groundwork.

As far back as 2009, Vijay had brought his fan clubs reportedly numbering around 85,000 across Tamil Nadu under a single umbrella: Vijay Makkal Iyakkam, meaning “Vijay’s People Movement.” The association was not just about movies. It ran social service drives, welfare activities, and community programs for nearly three decades. When TVK’s booth-level functionary Babu from Coimbatore described Vijay, he didn’t talk about box office numbers. “Unlike other actors, his political entry does not feel abrupt because we have been doing groundwork in the form of social service for close to three decades,” Babu said.

In 2021, these fan-turned-volunteer networks contested local body elections and won 115 of the 169 seats they contested. The fandom had quietly become an organisation. The organisation was quietly becoming a party.

The Official Leap and a Powerful First Speech

On February 2, 2024, Vijay made it official. He announced the formation of Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam TVK and declared his intent to contest the 2026 Tamil Nadu elections.

October 27, 2024 brought his first major political speech and it drew over five lakh people, one of the largest political gatherings Tamil Nadu had seen in years. The speech was personal, raw, and deeply human. Vijay spoke not like a party boss but like a man who had thought long and hard about why he was there.

“Isn’t it selfish to just think that only I should live well?” he asked the crowd. “Beyond a certain limit, what is one supposed to do with the money we earn? How am I going to repay the people who gave me life?”

He credited the women in his life his mother, his late sister Vidhya, and his friends for shaping his political awakening. He also invoked Anitha, the Dalit student whose death by suicide in 2017 triggered by NEET-related stress had shaken Tamil Nadu. “The death of another sister, Anitha, affected me just as much,” he said. He pledged to make women’s safety and education the core of his governance agenda and announced that women would lead his party’s structure.

“Don’t worry hereafter. Your son, your brother, your friend, your Vijay has come to the field,” he told the massive crowd.

Going It Alone and Paying Off

TVK’s election strategy was bold and risky. The party refused to align with either the DMK or the AIADMK. It contested all 234 seats independently. Vijay himself filed his nomination from the Perambur Assembly constituency, later contesting from Tiruchirapalli East where he won by a crushing margin of 27,216 votes, polling 91,381 votes in total.

The gamble paid off spectacularly. TVK emerged as the single largest party with 106 seats. The voter turnout in the election was a record 85.1% the highest for any assembly election in Tamil Nadu’s history.

Pre-poll surveys had warned that TVK could win up to 120 seats and that Vijay might become the “next MGR.” The final result was close to that prediction and it placed Vijay firmly in line for the chief ministerial chair.

Disrupting a Bipolar Legacy

For decades, Tamil Nadu’s politics had been a two-party affair DMK versus AIADMK, both rooted in the Dravidian movement’s ideals of social justice, Tamil identity, and anti-Hindi imposition. Power had passed between them since the late 1960s. Smaller parties always had to pick a side.

Vijay walked into this entrenched space and refused to pick a side. At TVK’s first conference in Vikravandi in October 2024, he labelled the BJP an “ideological opponent” due to its right-wing politics and called the DMK a “political adversary” due to alleged corruption and dynastic tendencies. He positioned TVK around “secular social justice, secularism, egalitarianism, a two-language policy, and democracy.”

His election manifesto unveiled in March 2026 was heavily women-centric: monthly financial assistance, free LPG cylinders, free government bus travel, gold and silk saris for brides from poor families, and dedicated women’s safety teams.

From Thalapathy to Chief Minister

In Tamil Nadu, the line between the screen and the street has always been thin. MGR became chief minister. Jayalalithaa followed. Now, Vijay has walked the same path and done it faster, cleaner, and more convincingly than most had imagined.

The man who once said on screen “I have a crowd willing to give their lives for me” has now turned that crowd into voters. The 51-year-old actor-turned-politician has dissolved the line between cinema myth and political reality. Tamil Nadu has a new leader. And this time, the script wasn’t written in a Kollywood studio it was written at ballot boxes across 234 constituencies.