When Thalapathy Vijay walked onto the stage at Bukit Jalil National Stadium this weekend, it was meant to be an audio launch. In reality however, it was way more than that — this was not just a promotional event for a Tamil film, this was a grand homage to a larger-than-life figure by the name of Vijay, whos is on the cusp of leaving cinema, not to retire, but the re-emerge as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, or the leader of the Tamils not only in India, but arguably worldwide.
The scale alone was staggering. An estimated 75,000 to 85,000 fans packed Malaysia’s national stadium for the audio launch of Jana Nayagan, widely believed to be Vijay’s final film before he transitions fully into politics. The event was officially recognised by the Malaysia Book of Records as the largest Tamil film audio launch ever held in the country. Malay and English-language Malaysian media carried reverential coverage for days — a rarity, if not an anomaly, for any Indian film star, whether domestic or international.
But numbers, impressive as they are, do not quite explain what unfolded in Kuala Lumpur.
A student of mine — just 20 years old — was part of the concert. He is not the sort who wears fandom on his sleeve. Yet when he returned, he admitted, somewhat surprised at himself, that he had teared up the moment Vijay appeared on stage. That moment, more than the crowd size or media headlines, captured the essence of Vijay’s charisma.
Here was a young man, less than half Vijay’s age, who did not grow up in the era of Ghilli or Thirumalai, and yet felt an intense, almost intimate emotional pull at the sight of the actor. That tells you something profound about Vijay’s presence. Charisma, after all, is not rational. It leaps across generations, geographies, and even cultures.
Vijay’s appeal does not stop with Tamil Nadu or even the Tamil diaspora. At the Bukit Jalil concert, my student noted that there were sizeable numbers of Malays and Chinese in attendance as well. I have seen this before. The last time I watched a Vijay film in a Malaysian cinema — The Greatest of All Time (GOAT) — I noticed a striking number of Malay viewers in the audience. This is no longer merely Tamil fandom; it is cross-cultural resonance.
That is what makes Vijay such an anomaly. He has acted almost exclusively in Tamil films, yet his reach spills beyond language and ethnicity. In Malaysia, a country where cultural silos often remain rigid, that kind of crossover influence is rare. It hints at something deeper than stardom — it hints at identification.
Back in Tamil Nadu, that identification has already taken political form. Vijay’s election rallies draw hundreds of thousands, sometimes reportedly millions. His party, Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK), is barely over a year old, yet it has already unsettled a political landscape long thought immovable.
For context, Tamil Nadu has been ruled almost uninterrupted since the 1960s by two Dravidian giants: the DMK and the AIADMK. Except for a brief post-independence interlude under the Congress in the late 1940s, power has never escaped this binary. Even the juggernauts of Indian politics — the BJP under Narendra Modi and the Congress, the party that led India to independence — have repeatedly failed to break this duopoly.
And yet, suddenly, Vijay is being spoken of as someone who might change everything overnight.
When Vijay first announced his political entry, I asked the Tamil workers in nasi kandar and Indian restaurants across Malaysia what they thought his chances were. The answer they gave the then was blunt: it is unlikely that Vijay will make a dent in Tamil Nadu politics, they all said unanimously.
A few months later, the tone shifted — uncertainty began to crept in. Almost all of them didn't think that Vijay was going to be the next Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, but now, they did not sound as cocksure as they were a couple of months earlier.
After a few more months, most had changed their opinion - many felt he could become the leader of the opposition, though chief ministership was still something that they felt might take another election cycle to come true for Vijay.
The last time I asked, I noticed that even that had changed - the verdict I would say, was split down the middle. Half of the people I asked were convinced he would be the next Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. The other half however, still believed the DMK’s organisational depth, muscle, financial powers and historical hold would ultimately prevail.
That kind of shift, in such a short time, was extraordinary.
Looking purely at political logic, I thought that the drastic shift in such a short period of time was itself an indication of Vijay already having more than an average chance of becoming the next Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. But when I heard my 20-year-old student speak about tearing up at Bukit Jalil — not in Chennai, not in Coimbatore, but in Malaysia — my assessment has changed.
Politics, at its core, is not about manifestos alone. It is about emotional alignment. People vote not just for policies, but for reflections of themselves. When voters feel that a leader’s victory is their victory, and his defeat their defeat, rational calculations often fall away.
Vijay seems to have achieved precisely that. Millions appear to see his journey as intertwined with their own — their aspirations, frustrations, and sense of dignity. When he says he is leaving cinema to “stand for the people,” it sounds believable for millions of people, because millions of people have been conditioned to believe that they are him, in lieu of watching him on screen for decades.
If that emotional bond can be translated into votes — and there is every sign that it can — then Tamil Nadu may be on the cusp of a political rupture unlike anything it has seen since the Dravidian movement first rose to power.
Not bad for an actor who entered politics barely a year ago.
So what are the chances of Vijay becoming the next Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu?
If you had asked me months ago, I would have said: possible, but unlikely. If you ask me now, after Bukit Jalil, after my student’s tears, after watching how deeply people identify with him across borders and cultures, my answer is different.
I believe that when Tamil Nadu goes to the polls next year, many voters will cast their ballots not just for Vijay, but as Vijay — believing that a vote for him is, in some intimate way, a vote for themselves.
And in politics, you can almost always count on people to take their own side.
Verdict: My bet is on Vijay to be the next Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in 2026.
TheRealNehruism (nehru.sathiamoorthy@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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