The Act of One: Power has only added to the performance of Vijay

On the morning of September 7, the Tamil Nadu Assembly was given over to Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay, who four days ago had promised to answer DMK’s questions on law and order. He spoke at length but only a few minutes were devoted to the questions about crime and curbing of dissent. Most of his replies either lacked specifics or meandered into generic assurances. The remaining speech was the actor’s, as he theatrically accused DMK of scrapping AIADMK’s schemes after 2021 and of leaving laptops undistributed for four years. He quoted MG Ramachandran’s film songs and lyricist Kannadasan’s verse at the opposition benches. DMK, he said, was fond of invoking its run-in with MISA, the Maintenance of Internal Security Act under which the Emergency government jailed its opponents without trial. As he said it, he tapped his chin, a gesture read as mockery, in bad taste, of the injury to MK Stalin’s face, widely attributed to the beating he took in Madras Central Prison in 1976. He would issue a clarification the next day, claiming that the gesture was inadvertent.

Vijay harked back to the Sarkaria Commission, appointed in 1976 to inquire into charges of corruption against Karunanidhi’s cabinet. He also produced, presumably as proof of DMK’s lasting corruption, portions of confidential Directorate of Enforcement (ED) communications that had surfaced in court proceedings and were available online. They alleged Stalin and Udhayanidhi Stalin were among the beneficiaries of commissions collected as “party funds”. Vijay separately referred to ED allegations involving former DMK minister V Senthil Balaji and his brother Ashok in the TASMAC case. These were all allegations, however, and not judicial findings.

The speaker refused the opposition a chance to respond and DMK went into the well and walked out, and Vijay stopped to help up Durai Chandrasekaran, a senior DMK leader. The clip travelled far. Assembly proceedings had been selectively livestreamed under DMK since May 2022. The new government’s May 14 confidence vote was the first to be broadcast in full, although later sittings have not always been shown in their entirety. A cut of an earlier Vijay speech passed a million views within hours on one Instagram handle. ‘Vijay vs Udhayanidhi’ is now a thumbnail that sells.

When the chief minister is not regaling the Assembly with dialogues like “After Anna, MGR and NTR, it is Vijay,” he is selectively reading out the past to enlighten his young voters. Earlier this month, however, Vijay had laid out ambitious plans for the future, announcing a new Secretariat-cum-Assembly complex for Chennai, to be spread over 20 lakh square feet and built at a cost of `1,200 crore. Chennai would also get an Olympic City. Elsewhere in Tamil Nadu there would be a Motor Sports City. While these are big-ticket projects, similar efforts have stalled in the past. Vijay is the third chief minister to attempt an exit from Fort St George. Jayalalithaa’s proposed sites did not survive opposition, and Karunanidhi’s Omandurar complex ceased to serve as legislature upon her return to office. Even the Sports City was not a new idea. In a letter dated July 31, the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu terminated the previous administration’s `205.89 crore work order for a Global Sports City at Semmancheri, on the land the DMK government had reclaimed from a private educational trust in 2021 after two decades of litigation. Tamil Nadu Sports Minister Aadhav Arjuna told the Assembly the project had been restructured.

Since Vijay came to power, his performance with the microphone has been phenomenal, feeding social media fandom and meme pages. But what is the work his government has put in? The first of Vijay’s three opening orders—200 units of free electricity every two months for households consuming no more than 500 units in that billing cycle—was incorporated by May 22. Roughly 1.46 crore connections were expected to benefit, at an additional annual subsidy of `1,730 crore. The Singappen women’s safety force was launched at a cost of about `357 crore, with 2,545 new posts and a dedicated fleet. A government order sanctioned `264.14 crore for 65 anti-narcotics task force units. On May 12, the government also ordered the closure of 717 outlets of TASMAC, the state corporation that holds the monopoly on retail liquor sales, within 500 metres of schools, places of worship and bus stops—15 per cent of the state’s shops—and the Madras High Court called it a good decision. The state collected `48,381 crore in VAT and excise from liquor in 2024-25. The closure order did not provide an estimate of the resulting revenue loss.

On administration, especially law and order, the opposition has pointed out several gaps. On September 3, in the debate on the police grant, Leader of the Opposition Udhayanidhi Stalin placed a compilation of more than 550 grave crimes before the Assembly, including murders, sexual offences against women and children, custodial deaths and caste killings. All of this had transpired in the government’s first 116 days, he said.

Vijay’s 35-member coalition cabinet includes eight Scheduled Caste ministers, the highest representation Tamil Nadu has had, and four women, as well as members of VCK, Congress and IUML. TVK made a good start but it was soon marred by Vijay’s appointment of his astrologer as an OSD to the CMO. The order was revoked the next day after VCK and the Left objected.

There have been other false starts. But the transition has also produced a curious, possibly temporary advantage. Petty corruption has fallen, in part because new ministers perhaps don’t yet know the old networks of extraction. Police officers reported less interference from politicians. Vijay’s inspections seem to bring immediate action. He has held no formal press conference, however, and offered few unscripted interactions.

The budget was Vijay’s first unavoidable encounter with reality. His government’s White Paper placed Tamil Nadu’s direct debt near `10 lakh crore and the wider burden, after public-sector and contingent exposure, at `13.18 lakh crore. PRS Legislative Research’s analysis of the 2026-27 budget presented by the new government estimates a revenue deficit of `55,775 crore and a fiscal deficit of `1,21,819 crore, or 3 per cent of GSDP. Committed expenditure absorbs 61 per cent of estimated revenue receipts. There is not enough fiscal room to enact TVK’s entire manifesto at once.

The `2,500 monthly payment promised to women heads of households has not replaced the earlier `1,000 scheme, with the new government saying it needs time to restructure it. The first phase of the six free-cylinder promise provides three cylinders a year, paid as a transfer into bank accounts, limited to families earning up to `2.5 lakh and beginning only at Pongal 2027. Free bus travel for women, which under DMK covered ordinary buses in cities and towns, will from October 2 extend to express, limited-stop and deluxe services in urban areas and to ordinary buses on mofussil and hill routes at a stated additional cost of about ` 6,000 crore a year. The cooperative farm-loan waiver now covers loans up to ` 75,000, with capped relief above that level, at a stated cost of ` 6,220 crore. Still, it falls short of the manifesto’s full waiver for small farmers.

Parandur is Vijay’s clearest decision. The proposed `29,144 crore second airport would have occupied 5,746 acres across 13 villages. Farmers had protested for over a thousand days against the loss of wetland, cultivation and homes. Vijay visited them in opposition and promised to stop the project, and he did, on August 24. His government will search for another site and try to raise Chennai airport’s eventual capacity from 35 million to 55 million passengers. Parandur had emerged after technical evaluation and Central clearances, and land acquisition and project preparation were advanced. Chennai’s search for a second airport dates back to 1999, and industrial groups warn that a replacement must not take another decade.

The most aggressive thing about Vijay’s government is its pursuit of DMK. The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption booked V Senthil Balaji in the TASMAC matter and searched about 40 locations. It later searched 30 places linked to KN Nehru, former municipal administration minister, and others over alleged manipulation of contracts between 2021 and 2025. In a separate cash-for-jobs matter involving Nehru, the new government withdrew the previous administration’s review petition against a high court direction to register a case. DMK as corrupt, unruly and dynastic was AIADMK’s case for four decades, and Vijay has co-opted it. After all, 25 AIADMK legislators voted for his government, while Edappadi Palaniswami’s 22-member bloc opposed it. Six AIADMK members later resigned, at least four of them to join TVK, reducing the party’s Assembly strength from 47 to 41.

Vijay withdrew cases filed by the previous government against farmers and teachers for peaceful protest. Yet, on August 4, Thanjavur East police arrested Udhayanidhi at his Neelankarai home over an alleged double entendre involving actor Trisha at a DMK protest in Thanjavur. The Madras High Court ordered his release after questioning and the state said it did not intend to seek remand. A month later, Chennai cybercrime police used a Look Out Circular to detain entrepreneur Prawin Ganeshan at Delhi airport over a since-deleted, allegedly derogatory post about Vijay and a female actor. In his September 7 monologue, Vijay warned the House that his government would not tolerate women being spoken of in derogatory terms. It was because of women that he had come to power, he said.

Even as he settles into his first stint in office, some ministers and legislators are already promoting Vijay as a prime ministerial candidate for 2029. Congress MP Manickam Tagore has described them as being in “fan mode” while insisting Rahul Gandhi remains his party’s choice and Vijay should remain chief minister. Tamil Nadu already knows Vijay can command attention, but not what he can do with it.