Pawan 'model': 'To survive, Vijay may have to align with parties he opposes now'

Given his popularity in the Telugu states, Tamil actor Vijay’s launch of a new political party,Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (VTK), has generated immense curiosity in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The fact is that barring Pawan Kalyan, the founder of the Jana Sena Party, all superstars of the two southern states have been proven bad leaders in politics after MG Ramachandran, NT Rama Rao, NTR, or Jayalalithaa.

Pawan Kalyan's journey to making his presence felt in Andhra politics took nearly 16 years, after he had changed too many ideological hues.

Assessing Vijay’s crowds

So, the huge crowds at Villupuram district's Vikravandi public meeting on October 27, where Vijay unveiled his party’s flag, ideology and the goal, have triggered a debate if these would be enough to succeed in Tamil Nadu politics. Vijay’s first public meeting forces one to trace the trajectory of Telugu heroes who entered politics since 1982, when NTR launched the Telugu Desam Party with an anti-Congress ideology.

Watch | Actor Vijay banking on 'Tamil nationalism' in Dravidian heartland?

NTR, although known for theatrics, launched the party on March 29, 1982 from a film studio he owned in Nacharam in Hyderabad without much fanfare.

The NTR revolution

No public meeting was planned. A newspaper advertisement simply called the fans to the Hyderabad Airport to receive NTR, who was arriving from Chennai to launch the party. Without a public meeting ever being organized, NTR swept to power with a landslide victory in the Assembly elections held nine months later. NTR campaigned for the 1983 general election atop a bus called Chaitanya Ratham.

The first big event to launch a political party in Andhra Pradesh was organized in Tirupati on August 26, 2008, by actor Chiranjeevi, then the megastar of Tollywood. The programme looked like a movie premiere, with songs from blockbusters beaming on a giant screen on the stage.

Rise and fall of Chiranjeevi

Like Vijay, Chiranjeevi did not attack anybody verbally while launching the Praja Rajyam Party. He simply conveyed his message of social justice by displaying the portraits of Mahatma Gandhi, BR Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, and Mother Teresa.

Everybody thought that the ocean of fans would create a tsunami in Andhra politics in the 2009 elections. But the crowds, the theatrics, the wide fan following, his please-all mannerisms, and his chant of social justice ended with a whimper.

The Praja Rajyam Party bagged just 18 out of 294 seats in the Assembly. The party disappeared in two years following its merger with the Congress in 2010, leaving its ambitious Youth Wing chief Pawan Kalyan in the lurch. Why did such a huge crowd disappoint Chiranjeevi?

Fans and audience

Noted film studies expert Dr SV Srinivas said the fan audience was in no sense representative of the audience at large although fans are among the most active sections of the audience.

“So, the crowds of fans cannot be taken as an indication of a hero's success in politics. Fans and audience at large are two different things,” Srinivas from Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, told The Federal.

This argument that fans and audience are two different sections is vindicated in the case of Pawan Kalyan, brother of Chiranjeevi, who later launched a party called Jana Sena. By far, in Andhra Politics, Pawan is known as the biggest crowd-puller. His crowds are mostly adolescents, mostly from the Kapu caste.

Pawan Kalyan changes ideology

Banking on these fan crowds, lauding the role of youth in world revolutions and displaying the portrait of Che Guevara, Pawan ran his party without any tangible result for 15 long years.

Watch | Vijay lacks foundation in politics, says political commentator Vijay Shankar

In the 2019 general elections, in spite of adopting an aggressive anti-Modi stand and injustice to South India as the main plank, his party won just one seat. He lost the two constituencies where he contested, forcing him to realize the fan power and fiery speeches alone cannot propel him to power.

So, he jettisoned the revolutionary rhetoric and accepted Sanatana Dharma as his new slogan. His alliance with TDP and the BJP worked a miracle in 2024 when he won all 21 Assembly seats he contested. The change of ideology and strategic alliance catapulted Pawn to political power. He became the deputy chief minister.

Why most stars falter in politics

Talking about ideologies, Srinivas said since the actor-turned politicians were not the products any political movement, incoherence was the hallmark of their politics.

“Like Pawan Kalyan, Vijay has not offered anything new. Whatever he said was there… Against this backdrop, one cannot be sure that for survival, he will not align with the same parties he is opposing now,” he said.

Vijay is no NTR

On Vijay drawing a parallel with TDP founder NTR, political observer Shastry V Malladi said the political contexts of 1982 and 2024 were vastly different and they were not comparable.

“In 1982, NTR launched the TDP by deploying a one-liner ‘Telugu Pride’ against the Congress anti-federal politics. People embraced the entirely new ideology with open arms. Now there is hardly any space for Vijay in Tamil Nadu and his old fare of Dravidian ideology, Tamil Nationalism and secularism are uninspiring. This may not help him carve out a space in Tamil Nadu politics,” Shastri, a journalist of Andhra origin from Tamil Nadu’s Madurai, told The Federal.

Fans yes, voters no

Another political commentator, Narendra Chalasani from Hyderabad, expressed a similar sentiment by stating that mere fan base and superstardom were not enough in politics as was repeatedly proven in both Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Also Read: Political reluctance to TVK plunge: How Vijay's father shaped his journey

“Many top stars failed in politics in Andhra and Tamil Nadu simply because they misread the meaning of the fan following and fan crowds at their public meetings. Vijay has to prove that he is different, at least in the run-up to the 2026 (Assembly) elections,” Narendra said.