The Bharatiya Janata Party has offered Tamil cinema superstar Vijay the Deputy Chief Minister position and 80 assembly seats in a dramatic bid to break its decades-long electoral drought in Tamil Nadu, sources told India Today.
The offer to Vijay's Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) party represents the BJP's most aggressive outreach yet in India's southernmost state, where the party has historically struggled to win even a handful of seats. Tamil Nadu's 234-seat assembly has been dominated for decades by Dravidian parties - the DMK and AIADMK - with regional identity and Tamil linguistic pride forming impenetrable barriers to BJP expansion.
But will Tamil voters actually support a film star turned politician aligned with a Hindi-belt party?
Rajendran, a 42-year-old auto rickshaw driver in Chennai, was skeptical when asked. "Vijay is a great actor, but Tamil Nadu politics is different. We don't vote for Delhi parties here. We vote for Tamil pride."
That sentiment captures the BJP's fundamental challenge in Tamil Nadu. Despite controlling the national government and dominating northern and western India, the BJP holds zero seats in the Tamil Nadu assembly. Its vote share in the 2021 state elections was a mere 2.6% - a humiliating performance for India's ruling party.
Vijay, 51, commands massive fan following across Tamil Nadu. His films regularly gross over Rs 200 crore at the box office, and he has cultivated a carefully apolitical public image for years. But in recent months, he launched TVK and began making political statements that align loosely with social justice themes popular in Tamil politics.
The BJP's offer - Deputy CM post plus 80 seats out of 234 total - would make Vijay a major player overnight. It's a recognition that the BJP cannot win Tamil Nadu on its own and needs a popular Tamil face to provide local legitimacy.
