How CM Vijay's empire stands on the tombs of an alliance and a party

For nearly six decades, Tamil Nadu politics had only two major Dravidian parties running the blockbuster show, the DMK and the AIADMK. Governments kept changing, alliances kept shifting, leaders rose and fell, but the Dravidian duopoly continued. Today, Tamilaga Vettri Kazagham (TVK) chief C Joseph Vijay's political rise has left the two Dravidian forces in a heap. The story of the rise of Vijay and his growing influence is not merely the story of a film star's political success. Rather, it seems like the rise of an empire that is standing on the tombs of the two grand-old alliances – the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) and the AIADMK-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the state.

The results of the Tamil Nadu Assembly election were announced on May 4, and Vijay's TVK emerged as the single-biggest party, winning 108 seats of the 234-member Assembly. For Vijay to be the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, he needed to surpass the majority mark of 118 seats, but Vijay's party fell short by 10 seats.

Vijay's path to prove a majority destroyed the MK Stalin-led DMK's SPA alliance, as its coalition partners, the Congress, CPI, CPI(M), IUML, and VCK, lent support to Vijay to pass the simple majority mark. The five parties had 13 seats in total, and their support made Vijay get sworn in as the 13th Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu on May 10.

Vijay's rise has not just damaged the DMK-led alliance, but it has now split the other major Dravida party of Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK.

REBEL FACTION OF AIADMK SUPPORTS VIJAY'S GOVERNMENT

The AIADMK had been haunted by a possible division since the death of former CM and party head J Jayalalithaa in 2016. In 2022, O Paneerselvan (OPS), then the party chief, was suspended after a long-running feud with then chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS). But the AIADMK was spared a vertical split due to OPS's lack of influence within the party.

On Tuesday, the risk of a vertical split of the party became real. At least 30 of the 47 AIADMK MLAs led by senior party leaders C Ve Shanmugam and SP Velumani extended support to CM Vijay. While announcing support, Shanmugam dismissed reports of a rift within the AIADMK and said he had no intention of splitting the party.

The AIADMK won a total of 47 seats in the 2026 Assembly polls, making the Shanmugam-led group the majority faction.

The support by the faction of AIADMK MLAs came just a day before a crucial floor test in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, during which CM Vijay will have to prove that he enjoys majority support. Now, with the support of parties divided from the DMK and the faction split from the AIADMK, Vijay's tally would stand at 151 seats, well above the 118 majority mark that he had struggled for.

"This mandate is specifically for Vijay to become the Chief Minister. That is the foremost and most important thing we have to understand. The people’s mandate is for Vijay to become Chief Minister. So, we respect the people’s mandate," AIADMK MLA Shanmugan said while addressing the press.

"To honour that mandate, we wholeheartedly congratulate Chief Minister Vijay. We, as the AIADMK party and the AIADMK legislative party, extend our full support to the TVK government headed by the Chief Minister," the Mailam MLA added.

WHAT SPARKED THE RIFT WITHIN AIADMK?

Shanmugam alleged that EPS, now the AIADMK General Secretary, was trying to ally with its decade-old rival, the DMK.

"The AIADMK was founded by MG Ramachandran (MGR) to oppose the DMK, and for five decades, we fought against them politically. But EPS sought to form a government with DMK's support and tried to back him as the Chief Minister. No MLAs agreed to the idea, and we were shocked," Shanmugam said.

Shanmugam also added that the dissident AIADMK MLAs had turned down the proposal of EPS and instead chose to back Vijay's TVK government, calling it a move made "in the larger interest of protecting the AIADMK and Amma's (Jayalalithaa's) legacy."

The party, which EPS fought for nearly a decade to hold together, has now made him the leader with minimal support in the House. With the 30 MLAs backed by Shanmugam extending support to the TVK, only 17 are with EPS.

Interestingly, today is the birthday of EPS, and on the same day, the party witnessed the split.

The Indian Express reported, quoting AIADMK insiders, that a powerful corporate-political lobby, allegedly "operating with encouragement from sections close to Delhi", worked aggressively behind the scenes to accelerate the split and push legislators towards the TVK camp.

Reliable sources in the rebel camp said AIADMK MLA Leema Rose Martin played a pivotal role in establishing communication between the factions and the TVK. "Without Leema, this would not have moved at this pace," a party insider told The Indian Express. Leema's son-in-law, Aadhav Arjuna, who is considered one of Vijay’s closest political confidants, is serving as a minister and a key strategist within the TVK, the report added.

HOW VIJAY'S RISE CAME AT THE COST OF DMK-LED COALITION

The Congress, which won five seats in Tamil Nadu, was the first to break away from the DMK-led alliance and extend support to Vijay on May 6, two days of the results. By backing the TVK, the Congress said it wanted to prevent "communal forces" (a reference to the BJP and its partners) from gaining ground in the state.

However, even with the Congress's support, Vijay's TVK remained short of the majority mark and still needed five more MLAs to form the government. Congress then assured Vijay that it would bring along other DMK allies, including the VCK, CPI, and CPI(M), to form a coalition government.

The DMK's alliance partners, the Congress, VCK, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), and the Left parties – CPI, and the CPI(M) – supported Vijay's claim to the CM's post. The VCK and the IUML, after giving mixed signals, finally announced support for Vijay on May 9.

With VCK, IUML, CPI, and CPI(M) formally announcing support for Vijay, the TVK's total tally passed the majority mark with 121 MLAs in the Assembly. Vijay didn't just oust the DMK from power, it left the Dravida giant friendless.

For over 50 years, Tamil Nadu politics was dominated by the DMK and the AIADMK. But Vijay's rise appears to have fractured both power centres at once. The DMK-led SPA alliance broke apart with partners backing Vijay, while the AIADMK now stares at a major split with a majority of its MLAs supporting the TVK government. Vijay, in the end, did not just build a new political force. He built it on the collapse of a powerful Tamil alliance and a Dravida giant.