‘Captain’ Vijayakanth: Iconic actor who scripted a novel chapter in Tamil Nadu’s political historical past
Founding father of DMDK, which challenged the dominance of DMK and AIADMK in 2011, passes away at 71.
Actor-turned-politician Vijayakanth, whose regional celebration DMDK (Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam) shocked India by displacing the highly effective ideological power, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), as the principle opposition celebration within the Tamil Nadu Legislative Meeting in 2011, is not any extra. He had been battling well being points for a number of years.
A launch from a non-public hospital in Chennai on December 28 introduced his demise: “Captain Vijayakanth was on ventilator help following his admission for pneumonia. Regardless of the most effective efforts of medical employees, he handed away within the morning.”
Vijayakanth achieved what no different political chief or celebration in Tamil Nadu was in a position to in over half a century: to indicate categorically that there existed an area for a substitute for the Dravidian politics of the DMK and the AIADMK.
Not one of the different political events—the Congress with the backing of successive governments on the Centre earlier, or the Bharatiya Janata Occasion, with the backing and the muscle of the present dispensation, or the various regional events—might match the vote share that the DMDK managed within the successive elections. In 2006, the primary election that the celebration contested, it acquired 8.38 per cent of the vote share. Solely Vijayakanth received that election from the Vriddhachalam Meeting constituency. Within the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the celebration managed a ten.3 per cent vote.
The rise and fall of DMDK
In some ways, the 2011 Meeting elections had been the watershed 12 months for the DMDK: regardless of Vijayakanth’s reluctance, his spouse Premalatha, his brother-in-law, Sudheesh, together with a number of celebration senior leaders ensured that Vijayakanth accepted the tantalising prospect of an alliance with the AIADMK. The AIADMK underneath J. Jayalalithaa reasoned that if the DMDK went alone, the opposition vote would cut up, and the DMK might achieve from such a cut up.
Folks collect to pay their final respects to DMDK founder-leader Vijayakanth on December 28, 2023.
| Picture Credit score:
PTI
Predictably, the DMDK’s vote share dipped a bit as a result of he had campaigned to date on the plank that the DMK and the AIADMK had been corrupt political events. The DMDK acquired a 7.9 per cent vote share, however 29 of its MLA contestants received. When his celebration took the area of the principle opposition within the Tamil Nadu Meeting in 2011, it was the primary time in over 4 many years {that a} celebration aside from the DMK and the AIADMK occupied the principle opposition area. The DMDK was precisely a six-year-old formation at the moment.
This was additionally the interval that Vijayakanth was unafraid to ask probing questions of the AIADMK authorities within the Meeting—which led to a couple heated exchanges and gesturing, most of which are actually a part of the Meeting data. An incensed Chief Minister Jayalalithaa needed revenge. By the top of the tenure, as many as seven legislators had shifted loyalties to the AIADMK, and some others had been on the point of leaving the celebration itself.
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From the time the DMDK took the alliance route, largely due to the maintain of the primary household’s political novices over Vijayakanth, there was no going again. In 2014, the DMDK noticed the primary main slide in vote share (5.1 per cent) when it fought the Lok Sabha elections in a Bharatiya Janata Occasion-led alliance. The decline continued into 2016, however this time the loser was the DMK. Forward of the 2016 elections, the DMDK was in open talks with ideologically diametrically reverse camps. It was additionally in secret talks with the DMK. When requested if the DMDK would be part of the DMK alliance forward of the 2016 polls, the then DMK president M. Karunanidhi remarked: “The banana is slipping. It’ll certainly fall into the milk,” which means that the DMDK would definitely be part of.
But when there was one factor sure concerning the DMDK, it was that nothing was sure. In 2016, after lengthy and arduous negotiations with virtually all of the political celebration combos within the fray, Vijayakanth introduced that he would be part of the brand new mix, Makkal Nala Kootani (Folks’s Welfare Alliance), if he was made the Chief Minister candidate. The mix agreed.
In 2016, whereas the celebration’s vote share slipped badly (2.4 per cent), it nonetheless managed to eat into opposition votes and ensured the defeat of the DMK in one of the carefully fought Meeting elections in Tamil Nadu.
Thus, each in its ascendance and decline, the DMDK has impacted the politics of Tamil Nadu in a way wherein no different political celebration, barring the DMK and the AIADMK, has managed to.
From reel to actual
“I’ve no concern,” Vijayakanth as soon as advised a well-attended public assembly of the DMDK on the peak of his prowess. “I don’t need a luxurious life… Losses that I incur don’t crush me,” he added. This was an extension of his movie dialogues into the political area, and his followers not merely cherished it; they believed in it.
That is finest exemplified by the celebration he based in 2005, which, at the moment, appeared to outdoors observers to be a solution to delay his appearing profession. The day earlier than the celebration was based, September 13, 2005, Vijayakanth and his major supporters from his followers affiliation had been closeted in a dialogue at Chennai’s Taj resort. The arrogance within the room needed to be seen to be believed! The title of the celebration was but to be determined. However there was no dialogue on that difficulty in any respect. The buoyancy on the assembly could possibly be gauged by the truth that Vijayakanth spoke about contesting the 2006 Tamil Nadu Meeting elections and was assured of besting each the DMK and the AIADMK.
Vijayakanth and Radhika in a tamil film “Poonthotta Kavalkaran”.
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PHOTO: THE HINDU ARCHIVES
Many of the discussions centred on what needs to be finished after the celebration received the 2006 polls. At one level, Vijayakanth turned, and he observed a dairy businessman from Salem. “Chandrakumar, since you recognize a lot about milk, try to be the Dairy growth minister,” he mentioned. He observed one other ‘fan membership’ senior Thangamani subsequent to him and advised him: “I’ve seen you deal so effectively with the media. You’re the Info Minister.”
Opposite to well-liked notion, Vijayakanth didn’t determine to enter politics on a whim. In 1996, he had taken a aspect when Jayalalithaa’s administration was operating amok. He didn’t marketing campaign like Famous person Rajinikanth or actor Sarath Kumar, however he had issued a press release in help of the DMK–Tamil Maanila Congress mix. His launch largely went unnoticed as a result of he was not an enormous star like Rajinikanth; nor was he a political power then.
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Like former Chief Ministers C.N. Annadurai, M.G. Ramachandran, M. Karunanidhi, and Jayalalithaa, Vijayakanth used cinema as his car to enter politics, though on the outset there was no such intention. In some methods, it was the Pattali Makkal Katchi’s (PMK) response to a few of his motion pictures, comparable to the discharge issues surrounding the 2004 movie Gajendra, that pushed Vijayakanth to maneuver within the route of launching a political celebration. The PMK had launched a marketing campaign towards sure varieties of films, and he was amongst these affected.
A easy famous person
In contrast to most different actors, Vijayakanth maintained an in depth rapport with Tamil Manila Congress chief G.Ok. Moopanar and DMK president M. Karunanidhi. His readability on ideological points will be attributed to the conversations with these two leaders. Consequently, he was clear (and fearlessly articulated his stand) on points such because the Cauvery water dispute, the Sri Lankan Tamil downside, and language politics, a lot earlier than he entered politics.
Within the movie world, infamous for actor tantrums, Vijayakant’s work ethic endeared him to all. He was a lot wanted as a result of he was one of many few actors in Tamil cinema–the others included Rajinikanth, Vijay, and Ajith–who might assure that the film would earn money. Younger actors cherished him as a result of he was prepared to cede area in contrast to the superstars of that point and, in some methods, helped the proficient actors Surya and Vijay within the early a part of their careers. Popularly referred to as Puratchi Kalaignar, Vijayakanth entered the movie business in 1979 with Inikkum Ilamai. He performed largely patriotic heroes and rural good samaritans.
Many leaders, nationwide and on the State degree, have provided their condolences on Vijayakanth’s demise. Chief Minister M.Ok.Stalin introduced that the chief could be laid to relaxation with State honours.
Within the movie world and in politics, Vijayakanth might be remembered for a really very long time as lyricist R.V. Udayakumar famous (with Vijayakanth in thoughts in Chinna Gounder, 1992): Andha Vanathai pola manam padaitha mannavane (An emperor with the broadmindedness of the skies).
