TVK supremo Vijay’s numbers game: Power within reach, but not yet in hand

The uncrowned king of Tamil Nadu is still not clear on National Policy

By T N Ashok

CHENNAI: In Tamil Nadu, electoral earthquakes are not new. But the 2026 verdict has produced something rarer than a landslide—it has delivered a political paradox. Vijay, the state’s newest political force and its most electrifying public figure, has shattered the long-entrenched dominance of the Dravidian giants, yet stopped just short of power.

With 108 seats in a 234-member Assembly, his party stands as the single largest formation, but 10 seats shy of the 118 required for a simple majority. He is, for now, the uncrowned king of Tamil Nadu—commanding the mandate, but not the machinery of government.

The scale of his disruption is undeniable. Both Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam—pillars of the state’s politics for over five decades—have been reduced to diminished blocs. Yet they remain formidable enough to deny Vijay a clear path to power. The arithmetic is stubborn, and in politics, arithmetic is destiny.

The final tally tells the story plainly: Vijay’s party at 108 seats, the DMK at 59, the AIADMK at 47, the Indian National Congress with 5, and smaller parties—the PMK, CPI, VCK, IUML and others—holding the balance. In theory, alliances could bridge the gap. In practice, each option comes with costs that cut against Vijay’s political identity as a reformist outsider.

The most straightforward route is coalition-building. Congress support, already signalled, would take him to 113. Adding the Left parties might push him to 115. Bringing in the PMK and VCK could carry him past the halfway mark to around 121—enough to form a government.

On paper, this is the cleanest solution. In reality, it is also the most fragile. Such a coalition would be stitched together from ideologically mismatched partners with competing agendas and little long-term incentive to ensure stability. Every major vote would become a negotiation; every policy a potential flashpoint. For a first-time administrator, this would mean governing under constant threat of collapse.

There is also the shadow that hangs over coalition politics in India: inducements. The market for legislative loyalty is neither new nor subtle. Estimates of what it takes to secure support from individual lawmakers range from several crores to far higher sums, depending on the stakes. Vijay, who has built his campaign around clean governance and anti-corruption messaging, faces a contradiction here.

The very act of assembling a coalition through transactional politics risks undermining the moral platform that brought him this far.

That leaves the second—and far more consequential—option: engineering a split within one of the Dravidian parties. Under Indian law, a political party can be effectively broken if two-thirds of its legislators agree to merge with another formation. For Vijay, this is the path to stability. If he were to draw roughly 38 legislators from the DMK or about 31 from the AIADMK, he would not merely cross the majority mark; he would secure a commanding position in the Assembly, potentially exceeding 140 seats.

A split in the DMK is possible because Stalin’s son in law Sabareesan, the money manager, who holds the purse strings of wealth aggregated over years, has the ability to do it. He tried once with BJP but failed as he was allegedly caught in the act by MK Stalin who made his son Udayanidhi powerful by making him his deputy and checkmater his son in law. Ever since Sabareesan and Udayanidhi have been daggers drawn at each other.

The Maran brothers, who control the media and the film industry, with one foot in the Congress could also help Vijay form the government as they have to survive new regulations under a new regime protecting their Rs 25,000 crore market valuation empire of Sun TV, cable TV and production houses.

Such a majority would insulate his government from the day-to-day volatility of coalition politics and give him room to govern decisively.

But this path is neither simple nor clean. Both the DMK and AIADMK are seasoned political machines with deep financial resources, entrenched loyalties, and experience in precisely this kind of high-stakes manoeuvring. Persuading large blocs of their legislators to defect would require not just political negotiation, but incentives—ministerial positions, influence, and, inevitably, financial assurances.

This is where Vijay’s structural disadvantage becomes apparent. Unlike his rivals, he does not command an established party apparatus or a war chest built over decades. What he has instead is popularity—a vast fan base that propelled him into politics, but which cannot easily be converted into legislative arithmetic.

There is also a question of control. Legislators who cross over en masse rarely do so out of ideological conviction. They come with expectations, and often with the habits of the system they are leaving behind.

A government built on such defections may be stable in numbers, but not necessarily in discipline or integrity. For a leader promising a break from the past, this presents a dilemma: secure power now by accommodating the old ways, or risk instability by resisting them.

Hovering over all these calculations is India’s anti-defection framework, which sets the legal boundaries of political manoeuvring. Enshrined in the Constitution through the Tenth Schedule, the law seeks to prevent individual legislators from switching parties after being elected. If a member defects voluntarily or votes against their party’s directive, they can be disqualified from the Assembly.

However, the law allows for a crucial exception: if at least two-thirds of a party’s legislators agree to merge with another party, the move is treated as a legitimate split rather than a defection. Those members are protected from disqualification and can retain their seats.

This provision effectively shapes the strategy before Vijay. Small-scale defections are risky and legally vulnerable; large-scale realignments are protected and politically transformative. The law also bars defectors from holding ministerial office if they are disqualified, reinforcing the importance of meeting the two-thirds threshold. In essence, it channels political bargaining toward bloc-level negotiations rather than individual inducements, though in practice the line between the two can blur.

For Vijay, then, the choice is stark. He can assemble a coalition that gives him power quickly but leaves him exposed to constant instability, or he can attempt a structural realignment of Tamil Nadu’s political landscape by breaking one of its dominant parties—an approach that promises durability but demands compromise.

The first path keeps his hands relatively clean but weakens his grip. The second secures his rule but risks staining the very ideals he campaigned on.

There is a third, less discussed possibility: waiting. Allowing rival parties to fragment under the pressure of defeat, positioning himself as the inevitable center of gravity, and drawing support over time without overt inducement. But politics rarely rewards patience when power is within reach, and constitutional timelines offer little room for delay. A floor test looms, and with it the need to demonstrate a working majority.

What makes this moment consequential is not just the question of who will form the next government, but how. Vijay’s rise has already disrupted Tamil Nadu’s political order. The method by which he consolidates power—whether through coalition, defection, or some hybrid of both—will determine whether that disruption becomes a durable transformation or a fleeting upset.

For now, he stands at the edge of authority, close enough to grasp it, but not yet secure enough to wield it. In the days ahead, numbers will move, loyalties will be tested, and the shape of Tamil Nadu’s next government will come into focus.

Whether Vijay emerges as a reformer who adapted to the system or one who reshaped it may depend less on the votes he has already won than on the deals he is willing—or unwilling—to make. (IPA Service)