New Delhi:
Politics and movies have a strong affinity down south and silver screen idols can make a successful transition into mass leaders with a cult following – as the runaway success of actor-politician Vijay’s TVK (Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam) has proved in the current round of assembly election in Tamil Nadu.
Emerging as the single-largest party with 108 of the state’s 234 seats and 34.9 per cent vote share, the two-year-old TVK has trounced the mainstream Dravida parties DMK and AIADMK and blown apart the binary politics the state has been witnessing for the last fifty years.
The ruling DMK-led alliance dropped to 73 seats, with the DMK winning 59. Chief Minister MK Stalin lost his Kolathur seat to the TVK candidate. And the AIADMK – which joined the NDA alliance — managed just 53 seats.
Read: Wrong To Delay Vijay ‘Sarkar’, Two Leaves Must Blow The Whistle
But Vijay is not the first to achieve such a high level of success.
The trend was started in Tamil Nadu by MG Ramchandran (MGR), who formed AIADMK in 1972. In the 1977 election, his party won big, and he became the Chief Minister. The only other actor who achieved a similar level of success was NT Rama Rao in Andhra Pradesh.
A cursory look can reveal a long list of actors who had taken the highway of politics. But apart from the major success stories of MG Ramachandran, his protégé J Jayalalithaa, Vijay, and NTR in Andhra Pradesh, other actors have received mixed response from the electorate.
Tamil Nadu
Jayalalithaa, a former actress, rose within the AIADMK after MGR’s death to become one of the most powerful leaders in the state, serving multiple terms as Chief Minister and securing strong electoral victories, including a major win in 1991.
Vijayakanth, who founded the DMDK in 2005, gained around 8.4 per cent vote share in 2006 with just one seat. His party’s influence later weakened further.
Kamal Haasan launched Makkal Needhi Maiam in 2018. While he secured about 2.6 per cent votes in the 2021 assembly election but failed to win any seats. His party is still struggling to expand beyond urban areas.
Andhra Pradesh
NT Rama Rao launched the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which is currently ruling the state, in March 1982. Within just nine months, he won a massive victory with 201 seats and ended the long dominance of Congress in the state. In the 1983 election, he secured around 46 per cent votes and became the Chief Minister.
Chiranjeevi launched the Praja Rajyam Party in 2008. He performed moderately in 2009, securing approximately 16 per cent votes and 18 seats, but later merged with Congress after achieving limited growth.
His brother, Pawan Kalyan, also a film star, founded the Jana Sena Party in 2014. In 2019, he secured about 5.5 per cent vote share and one seat. But he has grown in influence, winning over 20 seats in 2024 and becoming a significant player in coalition politics.
Till date, NT Rama Rao remains one of the most successful film stars who turned to politics and found huge success in Telugu politics,
Karnataka
In Karnataka, Kannada actor Upendra launched the Uttama Prajaakeeya Party in 2018, but it has so far garnered less than 1 per cent of the vote and no seats, remaining in an early experimental phase.
