CHENNAI: At the recent meeting to celebrate the first anniversary of Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), its founder and actor Vijay, in his bid to counter naysayers and offer hope to party cadres about winning the 2026 Assembly elections, drew parallel with the historic victories of the DMK and the AIADMK in 1967 and 1977, respectively.
According to him, many point to TVK’s inexperience and predominant presence of youngsters as factors that will impede their winning chances. Asking his cadres to ignore such skeptics, he said TVK will make history just as the DMK and the AIADMK did when they were new parties and their respective leaders — CN Annadurai (Anna) and MG Ramachandran — were largely backed by youngsters.
However, what Vijay overlooks, perhaps deliberately, is the years of hard work, diligent planning and, importantly, the political mobilisation that culminated in the landmark victories of the two parties in 1967 and 1977.
In 1967, the DMK became the first regional party in independent India to capture power in a state with clear majority. To stress that it was not an “overnight success” story would be an understatement.
While the foundation of the party — the Dravidian movement — could be traced even earlier, the DMK itself was 18 years old when it came to power in 1967. The credit largely goes to Anna, who used his political acumen, built a party organisation with a strong cadre base, and effectively used mass media like cinema, drama and newspapers to mobilise people towards the party’s cause of opposing the “hegemony” of the north and Brahminism.
The DMK entered the electoral fray for the first time in 1957 wherein its candidates contested as independents, securing 15 seats. It improved its tally to 50 in 1962 before forming the government in 1967, for which it did not hesitate to indulge in realpolitik to form an alliance with its arch-rival and former CM C Rajagopalachari, who was then heading the Swatantra party.
Congress leaders at that time played up the “sympathy wave” created by the assassination attempt on MGR, who was then with the DMK, by veteran actor MR Radha as the key reason for the DMK’s victory. While that is certainly an overstatement, it is true that the DMK did not fail to capitalise on the incident to leave no stones unturned. It pasted posters of MGR in the hospital with a bandage in his neck across the state to leverage public sympathy.
MGR was expelled from the DMK in 1972 and launched the AIADMK soon after. The party came to power in 1977 in the first general elections to the Assembly it faced. MGR, however, was not a political newbie like Vijay. He was deeply entrenched in politics and had meticulously crafted his public image through his movies as a champion of the masses, by carefully choosing not only the roles he donned but the movie titles, songs and dialogues, which earned him an unshakeable fan base.
His political career went back at least by 25 years. He actively campaigned for the DMK in 1957, 1962, 1967 and 1971 polls. He became an MLC in 1962 and later an MLA in 1967 by winning his first Assembly election. He rose through the party hierarchy and was its treasurer — the third highest position — when he was expelled.
Prior to tasting the massive victory in 1977 Assembly elections, the AIADMK had won the byelection to Dindigul Lok Sabha seat in 1973, formed government in Puducherry in 1974 and swept the 1977 general elections to the parliamentary seats in Tamil Nadu by allying with the Congress (R).
MGR’s structured fan base, vast experience in politics, and the ability to pull some key leaders from the DMK aided him in no small measure.
Vijay should compare himself with the prolific public outreach the leaders of these two parties did, especially the DMK, by constantly engaging through letters, the media and hundreds of public meetings. Old-timers recall that until late 1980s, it was a common practice during public meetings for leaders — however big they might be — to take questions from the public, who could jot them down in a piece of paper and pass it to the stage.
In contrast, Vijay’s interest, inclination and understanding of politics prior to launching the party remain unknown. Since launching the party, he has made public speeches only on four or five occasions, in which he seemed to deliver prepared speeches in an extempore style. Importantly, Vijay is yet to engage with the media, which the early leaders of the DMK and the AIADMK never shied from, but in fact actively pursued.