TVK leader and actor Vijay.
Credit: PTI Photo
Chennai: Enthused by the response to the second state-level conference in Madurai, Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) leader and actor Vijay will begin his tour across Tamil Nadu’s districts on September 13 from Tiruchirapalli in the state’s central region.
He will cover all 38 districts, visiting two to four districts every Saturday from September 13 to December 20, with one Sunday visit on October 5.
These details were mentioned in a letter that TVK General Secretary N Anand submitted to the Director General of Police, seeking permission and protection for Vijay’s public tour.
Vijay’s tour comes a week after TVK’s state-level conference in Madurai on August 21, which drew a massive crowd and where the actor-politician positioned his party as the primary challenger to the ruling DMK.
On Tuesday, hours before Anand submitted the letter to the DGP’s office, Vijay used the X platform to accuse the DMK government of filing false cases against his party members to disrupt his district tour.
The tour schedule, which went viral on social media, sparked criticism about whether Vijay was a "weekend" politician for scheduling all his public contact programs on Saturdays.
Vijay joins a long list of actors who have entered politics in Tamil Nadu, including M G Ramachandran, J Jayalalithaa, Sivaji Ganesan, Vijayakanth, and Kamal Haasan.
While the first two achieved significant political success, the latter three saw limited impact, though Vijayakanth briefly disrupted the state’s bipolar politics.
Superstar Rajinikanth did not enter politics, despite promising to launch a party and contest the 2021 elections.
Vijay’s political plunge is bold, as no actor has recreated MGR’s magic in nearly four decades. Over 75 per cent of Tamil Nadu’s vote share is controlled by DMK and AIADMK, the Dravidian majors who have ruled the state alternately since 1967.