Thalapathy Vijay local poll victory scares PMK

The victory of Vijay Makkal Manram candidate as Villipuram municipality President went unopposed    has started giving  age old PMK sleepless nights. It sees the rise of Vijay as filling the void left by Vijayakanth . The PMK which was breathing easy as Vijayakanth was physically ill is now seeing youths flocking towards the actor’s Makkal Manram, a phenomena that took place when Vijayakanth floated his party. The success of Vijay  though low in numbers is alarming to PMK  the areas the former's victory ,are in pockets where it has a clout. The fact that victory is  in seats where Scheduled Castes voters are in a majority is another concern.

Vijay fans have won 115 seats out of 165 seats it fielded candidates  . Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) of actor Kamal Haasan and Naam Tamizhar Katchi (NTK) could not make any headway this election. NTK has been contesting elections since 2016, while MNM made its debut in 2019. Though Vijay has not officially endorse the poll victory of his fan club members ,  his  Man Froday Bussy Anand told the media after the results that the actor had given the green signal to enter the poll and  to use his name, photos and organisation banner for campaign to 165 candidates selected by Anand.

The emergence of Anand saw the actor distancing himself from his  father who till then controlled Vijay Makkal Manram,  He even got a court order to restrain his father and his supporters to use his name or fan club banner in elections.

Like Vijayakanth ,  Vijay too has entered the political arena silently through his fan clubs.  In the local body polls. 13 of the 115 elected are those who won  unopposed. . The success rate is 68% . The total seats that went to poll is around 23,000.  Anand is an ex  Congress MLA from Puduceery. All posters of the candidates carried Anand with Vijay photos.

Seeman’s argument that Vijay  fans who won claiming  to have won using the actor’s popularity was only hoodwinking the public. All of them had local clout and individual popularity. Vijay fans enraged by this has put up posters asking Seeman to apologize. Ironically, Seeman says Vijay his younger brother.

Victorious candidates of Vijay Makkal Manram termed Independent is nothing  undermining. Out of the 23, 000 posts, only 1500 filed party nomination papers and all others were  Independents supported by a political party.