TVK cadres are worried, the leadership looks weak, and the party is not fully prepared for the 2026 elections, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Even as actor-politician and Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam founder Vijay is coming out of the self-imposed shell after the Karur stampede that claimed 41 lives, the party seems to be facing a renewed/revived existential crisis.
The TVK does not want to acknowledge the evolving crisis, even if the leadership has understood it.
The source of the impending crisis flows from the party's special general council meeting, which revived/reiterated the pre-Karur stampede resolve to project Vijay as their chief minister candidate, and its determination to oust the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on its own steam, possibly hoping to exploit the inevitability of a multi-cornered contest.
Ground reports indicate that the TVK's fans-turned-cadres are not as happy and confident as they were pre-stampede.
It's not only about the party standing by them in times of crises, as all top leaders, starting with Vijay, simply vanished for days together post-stampede, with no access to the cadres.
Two of them, General Secretary 'Bussy' N Anand and his deputy C T R Nirmal Kumar filed anticipatory bail applications in the Madras high court, distancing themselves from the organisational affairs of the Karur event, making District Secretary V Mathiazhagan the sole scapegoat for such a massive tragedy.
The cadre's concerns go way beyond. They are now convinced that barring an unlikely event that they cannot fathom in advance, there is little chance of Vijay becoming chief minister on the TVK's own steam or at the head of an alliance of minor parties with no voter-base to call their own.
Being the maiden election for itself, the TVK has no proven voter-base to be able to negotiate a fair deal with a larger alliance like the AIADMK-led BJP-NDA, who would quote statistics to put down the party's claims while negotiating across the table.
In effect, a section of the TVK cadres, especially post-stampede, are ready to concede that they should be ready to become a junior partner with a deputy chief minister's chair for Vijay this time round.
They should then exploit the available opportunity to develop the required staying power for elections 2031, where Vijay would be pitted against the DMK's Udhayanidhi Stalin and the likes of former BJP state president Kuppusamy Annamalai.
By 2031, DMK leader M K Stalin and AIADMK leader Edappadi K Palaniswami would respectively be 77 and 76 years old. The younger generation would be in their mid-fifties, with Annamalai being the youngest of the three.
Some Black Swans too could appear on the electoral scene just as Vijay has appeared this time.
If they want to jump the gun this time, there is apprehension among TVK cadres that they might be shooting either in the air or at their own feet.
This time round, for instance, EPS is not going to yield the chief minister's post, for which he has already concluded the first-round campaign in nearly 175 of the 234 asssembly constituencies.
Literally speaking, Vijay is yet to start his district-wise campaign, which he promised long ago.
The Karur stampede has caused a sudden end to his road-shows in select districts, where again he did not talk politics, ideology or policies the way poll campaigns are designed over the past several decades.
At all such venues, barring Madurai, where the TVK had its second state-level conference, Vijay showed up, had his 10 minutes in the limelight for his fans, many of them middle-aged women, to get his darshan, if that's what it was.
Today, the cadres are convinced that they need more material, real material, to face off their rivals in other parties in house-to-house campaigns and street-corner chit-chats. Up to this point, the party is ill-equipped to educate them on policy matters, as the cadres are raw and need to be shaped up for a real fight.
Instead, the focus has already turned on Vijay's anticipated swan-song of a film in Jana Nayakan coming in the Pongal festival season. Jana Nayakan is due for an early theatrical release on January 9 itself.
Whether the fans-turned-cadres believe in it, the leadership seems hopeful that the film would kickstart Vijay's poll campaign as if he was appearing in every town and village at the same time.
If nothing else, they are convinced that the media talk on Jana Nayakan especially would be able to divert the people's attention from what has become an overdose of the Karur stampede, where the party and person continue to come out as the villain.
Vijay's public appearances, speeches and statements, when delivered, are coming to be seen as 'non-serious' compared to, say, the AIADMK's EPS. Or, even that of state BJP leaders, including unit chief Nainar Nagendran, who are halting in their attack on the TVK, yes, but are unsparing against the ruling DMK.
Their idea is to exploit the sense of 'anti-incumbency' that they could touch and feel. Against this, Team Vijay seems to have concluded that those anti-incumbency voters against the DMK are already in their bag. Only the election results would show if their assumption was correct.
An analysis of past poll results would confirm that 30 to 35 per cent of Tamil Nadu's electorate still comprises non-committed 'swing voters'.
They are easy prey for any political Opposition, especially a new and popular face like Vijay.
However, these voters also will be evaluating what is on paper, what is on offer. No, it is not only about promises of more subsidies and welfare schemes but about the larger policies and programmes of the party in question.
In this particular department, the TVK is way behind the AIADMK-BJP alliance. And, of course, the ruling DMK. So is Vijay behind EPS.
Of particular voter interest and party concern should be a passing appeal made by TVK Policy Secretary K G Arunraj at the general council meeting.
An Indian Revenue Service veteran who took voluntarily retirement and almost readily joined the TVK and named for a newly-created party post, Arunraj asked the state's women to forego the Rs 1,000 monthly cash subsidy offered by the DMK government.
It is a considered a popular scheme along with free bus-ride for all women, and TVK cadres are concerned that such ideas from the likes of Arunraj can only dampen the pro-Vijay spirits of the women voters.
Yes, they do believe that Arunraj had Vijay's prior say-so. Else, they argue, a correction or denial should/would have been issued by now.
Hoping for a stronger alliance by roping in Vijay into the NDA combine, the AIADMK and BJP separately were going slow on Vijay.
They in fact backed the TVK on the Karur stampede issue, and individually and independently targeted the ruling DMK and Chief Minister M K Stalin.
But once the daggers are drawn, EPS and the experienced AIADMK second line would be unsparing in its attacks on the TVK and Vijay, often challenging them on popular issues and common concerns.
Thus far, Vijay has escaped scrutiny on such matters by either not commenting on them, or by issuing a short statement that says nothing much -- without either he or his top-line willingly confronting the media's queries.
This inaccessibility to the media, and through that to the voter, is not what the 'swing section' relishes. They want the aspirants to the throne to say it all, come out in the open.
They were/are not convinced about Vijay's Madurai declaration that the cadres should work as if he was contesting in each of the 234 constituencies.
Social media questions then pointed to the impossibility of such a situation when the cadres -- and possibly the leadership -- did not know if there was a safe seat for Vijay to contest, and if so, which was that constituency.
In his patently 7 to 10 minute speech at the general council, Vijay continued to depend on a poll strategy that is past its prime. Like in the past, he told the ruling DMK that they had already lost the race, which he re-asserted was only between them two.
It was an insult that the AIADMK-BJP combine could not stomach any more, but it looks as if the EPS leadership especially has decided to ignore Vijay and TVK, as the DMK's Stalin has done already.
Whatever public reaction from the DMK vis a vis Vijay and the TVK now come mostly from second-line office-bearers, other than on specifics, where the portfolio ministers might choose to issue a denial or clarification.
It was thus that Vijay told the general council that DMK leaders would go and hide inside Arivalayam, the party's headquarters in Chennai, after reading out a public statement that they accepted the 'people's verdict' (that favoured the TVK, instead).
Leave aside the fact that Vijay did not say anything against the BJP after dubbing it as his 'ideological enemy' on more than one occasion.
DMK old-timers see Vijay's comments on the poll results as an affront on the late party patriarch M Karunanidhi, Stalin's father, who would issue a statement immediately after losing an election, and go about his party and political work as if there was another day and another time, and he and his cadres had to be prepared for the same.
If such loaded but personalised derisive statements from Vijay are avoidable, his senior aides have been provocative towards the DMK especially, leaving a bad taste even in the TVK cadres' mouth.
Vijay, who has implied to 'change it all' in the state's political system and administration, and for the better, would have to face questions about the TVK's political culture vis a vis defectors and corruption, when he has people with questionable past/present in the party's top rung.
In a way, Vijay should also be prepared to answer social media queries -- not possibly from political adversaries -- about his own finances and the sources of funding for the TVK.
Some embarrassment it would be, if and when asked -- whether answered or not.
N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and author, is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator.
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff