Actor-politician Vijay, who broke all records in Tamil Nadu to emerge as the single largest party with his brand new TVK that had repudiated Dravidian politics, is still a few seats short of majority. Amid reports that the Congress has sent feelers to him for an alliance, senior party leader Karti Chidambaram pointed out that it should be Vijay who must approach other parties.
Asked about the matter in an exclusive interview with an NDTV panel led by CEO and Editor-in-Chief Rahul Kanwal, Karti Chidambaram said it was a “little bit beyond” his pay grade.
But it is “actually the party which is seeking support which would reach out to other people, not the parties which are offering support,” he said.
Vijay, he added, should not have trouble finding an ally for 10 or 12 seats. “He should be able to muster that number up and he should be able to have a working majority to form a government comfortably,” he added.
Vijay’s basic premise was a change from Dravidian politics as practiced by the DMK and AIADMK for nearly 60 years. It had dovetailed with the aspiration of the state’s young people and today he won 108 of Tamil Nadu’s 234 seats. The majority mark stands at 128 and he would need support from at least 21 MLAs to form government.
The Congress has won five seats, its ally DMK 59 and is leading in one seat. The AIADMK has won 47 seats
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Earlier, the actor-politician had brushed off the possibility of a tie-up with either Dravidian party. He had indicated that he could have found the AIADMK acceptable if it did not come as a package deal with the BJP. That leaves the Congress as a key option.
Asked how a government headed by Vijay might perform, Chidambaram junior — son of former Union Minister P Chidambaram, said he was in the dark.
“The vote is for Vijay and he has to really articulate his vision. He has hardly met the press or given an interview, so I really don’t know. I mean, his basic theme was change and people wanted a change. But what that change will be, he has to articulate,” he added.
The people, Chidambaram said, wanted a change, which was like the “movement in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or Nepal”, except through democratic means.
“The young are definitely restless, and they did not buy into the politics of the two Dravidian parties and they suddenly found a change agent in a popular actor. The popular actor still has to articulate his position and come up with a governance model. But I think people didn’t really care for that. They trust him,” he added.