The likes of Sengottaiyan can help Vijay navigate it better and faster -- but not necessarily to his goal, which is farther, and can move towards or away from him as well in the weeks and months to come, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Tamil actor-politician Vijay's PR team has done it again. By timing his road-shows for the weekends earlier, they ensured that the superstar of Tamil cinema cornered all the media space for those two-plus days.
Now, they have done one better, by denying the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin the media space that would have been his on the man's 48th birthday on Thursday.
By fixing the TVK entry of sacked All India Anna DMK veteran K A Sengottaiyan for November 27, they also let the latter have his day in the limelight, which he has always shunned through his 53 long years in the party, since MGR founded it in 1972.
Do roadshows and media space make elections? Vijay seems to have realised that there is more, hence the induction of one of late Jayalalithaa's men from the inner circle, whose political experience and poll management expertise, the TVK hopes to immensely benefit from.
The induction of Sengottaiyan, or KAS for short, is a message to cadres and voters alike that the TVK is putting its house in order, and organising it in a way any ambitious, poll-bound party should. If it can help bring in more of those sidelined in the DMK, AIADMK, Congress and other parties, so be it.
Vijay would use the thumb rule of corruption to pick and choose from among them, whose queue is expected to become longer in the coming days and weeks. After all, he cannot fight his anti-corruption war against the ruling DMK, which he has sworn to, by having discarded corrupt politicians on his side.
It could give him an unproven belief of political strength after his untested fans' imagined capabilities, but it would also hit him hard on the credibility quotient. Known to them or otherwise, the TVK is targeting the 30 to 35 per cent of the 'non-committed, swing voters', who alone had decided past elections -- and they are not going to like it.
For Sengottaiyan, 77, to succeed in whatever mission assigned to him, he has to win over, or overcome, the presently entrenched second-line in the TVK. His political experience may surpass the age of many, if not all of them -- or, come close to that.
Apart from the generation gap and the rural-urban background divide, the top five second-line leaders in the TVK are reportedly indulging in one-upmanship. Having worked in an environment where Jaya's diktat alone carried, and he had her authority whenever she wanted, KAS will now be faced with a new work culture.
KAS too cannot afford to wait for things to settle down. The party just does not have time -- and every minute lost now will be a month lost on election eve. KAS knows it. Others, including Vijay, do not, in real terms.
At best, TVK General Secretary 'Bussy' N Anand's limited political experience was/is confined to native Puducherry. He does not have the required imagination to visualise the contemporary TN scenario with every detail.
If his political experience and expertise are what Sengottaiyan is bringing to the TVK table, what is his reward for the same?
Having chosen to stay on in politics after AIADMK boss and chief ministerial aspirant Edappadi K Palaniswami had sacked him and the latter's BJP ally's central leadership (read: Amit Shah) had deserted him after flagging him to 'rebel' against his party boss, this is the best/only choice for KAS.
Truth be told, despite the media hype and analyses around his entry into the TVK, there is no guarantee that Sengottaiyan, a nine-term MLA, can retain his native Gopichettipalayam seat in the west, which he quit ahead of joining Team Vijay.
His designation as the TVK's chief coordinator, to work with General secretary Anand, and his added authority over the party organisation in four districts, is not going to help make it.
Here are the reasons. One, next year's assembly poll is turning out to be a four-cornered contest that it promised to be when Vijay floated the TVK. Tamil Nadu is new to a multi-cornered electoral contest, and that is saying a lot.
Nothing is guaranteed to anyone, particularly the untested ones. Sengottaiyan is untested outside of his AIADMK comfort zone, that too in his native western region where the party, and not the persona barring MGR and Jayalalithaa, had commanded any charisma.
In today's context, even Vijay does not have a 'safe seat' -- because he is new to politics and elections, and has always been known to be a 'city guy'. His father, the yesteryear film-maker, S A Chandrasekaran, belongs to the southern coastal region of Nagappattinam, and Vijay (full name: Joseph Vijay) used to be known for offering prayers at the neighbourhood Velankanni church, off and on. It does not give him any lean.
There is also no reason to believe, as earlier, that all of actor-politician Seeman's eight per cent vote-share from last year's Lok Sabha polls will move to Vijay's side. For that to happen, Vijay has to plan and propagate a pan-Tamil agenda stronger than that of Seeman.
Once at the receiving end of the Hindutva brigade owing to his Christian identity (even when he had not entered direct politics), which has also monopolised the contemporary 'nationalist' narrative, it would be difficult for Vijay to spell out any pan-Tamil narrative that won't be contested by his rivals, starting with Seeman.
Vijay's PR team's strategy, for him to target the ruling DMK and Chief Minister M K Stalin exclusively, as if to prove their point that the elections are only about the two of them, cannot hold on for too long. He would then have left a major gap in his campaign, which the mainline AIADMK and its BJP ally would only be happy to fill.
Even in the case of Vijay's attacks on the DMK, they are over-stated and over-exposed. His repeated attempts to convince the voter that the state government under Stalin is after him and his cadres, are not accompanied by facts and details.
Even his unexplained conspiracy theories on the Karur stampede in which 41 people lost their lives at Vijay's road-show in end-September does not connect with the voters, as much as with his fans -- if at all.
In a state where the likes of MGR, Karunanidhi, Jayalalithaa and more recently, erstwhile TN BJP president K Annamalai, had rolled out documents and evidence to establish their corruption charges against the other, Vijay's well-choreographed cinematic lines too can lose their charm -- if it has not happened already.
Thus the main work for Sengottaiyan in the TVK is to change the leadership's mindset to address political issues politically and electoral issues, electorally. Doing so dramatically does not help, but will KAS have the time, space and freedom to spell out the reality on the ground on this and other matters, is the question.
Incidentally, if Vijay is targeting the DMK and Stalin, the latter has continuously ignored him and his party. They have been focusing on the traditional AIADMK rival and its BJP ally -- whom Vijay long ago pronounced as his 'ideological enemy' but has not said or done anything about since, even as much as against the ruling party.
Unnoticed by the TVK, the DMK and the AIADMK have already built the traditional 'I-or-U' narrative, keeping Vijay out of context, if not the electoral contest. At some point, Vijay will have to hijack the AIADMK-BJP narrative in full if his claims that the DMK alone is his 'political enemy' has to bear fruit.
That is a long way off, but again, Vijay and the TVK do not have the luxury of time, which they may have 'wasted' by sitting out the early phases, unlike in the film world, where the audio launch alone kickstarts it all, just weeks before a film's release.
It means that Vijay has to be looking at the so-called swan song of his cinematic career as a chief ministerial aspirant and not a superstar. His last film before entering the election fray, aptly titled Jana Nayagan (People's Hero), is due for a Pongal release but will beat the Tamil harvest festival by one weekend, to release on January 9.
The box office success of the film matters, especially for Vijay's ever-enthusiastic fans who are also now politically driven. But any widespread talk of high rates in the black market for the film through nearly a week of public holidays can play spoiler for Vijay.
It would then be difficult for him to convince the people that only the distributors and theatre owners did it -- with possible nudging by the government, especially because Deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin is a well-known film producer, financier and distributor. Another 'conspiracy theory' which would be bought initially, yes -- but again would not go further and farther.
In the footsteps of Sengottaiyan, will other discarded leaders in the AIADMK and other parties want to join the TVK ranks?
While the temptation may be high, mature leaders among them would wait for the kind of treatment KAS gets in the party before wanting to cross over.
They all know that they carry weight with their supporters and traditional voters of their parties whom they want to covet, if and only if their own positions in the TVK is assured. They will wait at least for a month, as alliance talks will commence only at the start of the new year -- and they know it.
When Sengottaiyan joined the TVK, he did not remove Jayalalithaa's photograph from his shirt pocket (where they all carry in the AIADMK). He would not have done it if he were to join the DMK instead. That too is saying a lot.
For now, speculation is rife that three-time AIADMK chief minister O Panneerselvam and breakaway AMMA founder T T V Dhinakaran are eyeing the TVK. Between the two, TTV has openly indicated his interest in the TVK more than once. OPS has only said that he would make a huge declaration after December 15 if the 'reunion talks' in the AIADMK failed.
TTV has a proven vote share, but not OPS. Likewise, using Sengottaiyan and his existing team, Vijay may consider roping in the likes of DMDK, founded by late actor-politician Vijayakanth, one of the two factions of the PMK where a father-son duel is playing out, and others.
Yet, them joining the TVK can add to the imagery of the government-in-waiting. The truth would still be otherwise. For that to happen, Vijay and the TVK, with or without its allies-in-waiting, have to do more. But what more they should do, and can do, and offer the voters, remain unknown to them -- or, so it seems.
In the still evolving electoral scenario, Vijay still remains a disruptor. He has to grow first into being the 'decider' before aspiring to become chief minister.
The gap is wide and deep, and the likes of Sengottaiyan can help Vijay navigate it better and faster -- but not necessarily to his goal, which is farther, and can move towards or away from him as well in the weeks and months to come.
N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and author, is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator.