When director Atli Vijay donned a tracksuit and was asked to assemble a dysfunctional football team in the 2019 Tamil blockbuster “Bigil” (Whistle), few would have imagined it would serve as a political instruction manual.
This week, C Joseph Vijay – now the president of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) – was going through the same training on a different field, chasing not a national championship but the right of the prime minister, and discovering that the politics of the alliance are every bit as messy as Atlee’s film plot.
The math seems deceptively simple.
- The 234-member Tamil Nadu Assembly requires 118 votes to obtain a majority. TVK won 108 seats – the largest single mandate in a hung house.
- After Vijay If he wins from two constituencies (he must vacate one), the effective number is 107.
- The minus is 11, which is the number of players you need to form a soccer team. Legally, he can do so with 10 as well, as the total members voting for the vote of confidence will also fall to 233 since Vijay cannot vote twice despite getting two seats.
Recruits are reluctant
in ‘Bigil, Coach Michael’s recruits, arrive with baggage—some carrying a complaint, a request, and a hurt she must address before she ties her shoes. The drama of government formation was as identical as could be.
The Congress arrived first, with five seats up for grabs, but with a condition attached: Vijay must Never ally with “communal forces,” a reference to the BJP and its senior partner AIADMK in the state. Next came some reliable players who show up and get the job done, in CPI and CPI(M) with two seats each. Both offered “external support”, again citing the need to prevent “backdoor entry” of the ruling BJP through President’s Rule if the government is not formed by May 10.
This brought Vijay’s confirmed tally to two points below 118.
The star player who won’t sign, and other fluctuations
In Attlee’s film, the most talented player is always the hardest to convince. VCK’s Thol Thirumavavalavan played that role with some ambiguity all week. His party holds only two seats, which is what Vijay needs. VCK Deputy Secretary General Fani Arasu publicly demanded the position of Deputy Prime Minister before issuing any formal letter of support.
Friday was a day of ups and downs, a surreal twist before halftime that led to the end at some point.
Account X using the name VCK posted a letter of support, then deleted the tweet and the account was also gone within an hour.
Vijay got it. Then he didn’t do it.
His character Coach Michael yells at his team in “Bigil”: “Don’t play for the name on the back of your jersey!” He wanted them to be a team, not individuals.
Another member of the DMK camp, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML, added its own twist, initially indicating support for Vijay, before saying it was all just a rumour.
No Hindi film script is complete without the character twisting the plot from within. AMMK president TTV Dhinakaran took up the role with relish, accusing TVK supporters of circulating a fake letter claiming that his party’s only MLA had joined Vijay’s side. Terming it a “mockery of democracy”, he even wrote to the Governor supporting AIADMK’s Edappadi K Palaniswami.
Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlikar – who met Vijay three times in three days without a formal invitation to form the government – has some similarities with the chief football association official in ‘Bijil’, playing the role of institutional gatekeeper who demands papers before the team can even enter the field. There is no written evidence from the 118 MLAs, no whistle blow.
Penalty kicks
The Tamil Nadu team did not win the National Championship in Beijel with a strong and dominant performance. Vijay, known to fans as Thalapathi or ‘The Leader’, won handsomely on May 4; But not enough.
Bigil women’s team wins on penalties. Just like the team does in Shah Rukh Khan’s film “Chuck D!” India, the 2007 Bollywood film that partly inspired Vijay’s 63rd film.
By Saturday morning, reports indicated that the VCK had finally submitted its letter of support, pushing Vijay’s tally past 118. A press conference was expected later in the day.
Whether the political Vijay will be able to keep his patchwork coalition together long enough to actually rule, as any Tollywood fan realizes, is always the issue for the sequel.
At one point, Vijay wanted to join Congress, HT reported – Another similarity of sorts to how Michael’s character aka Bigil Vijay wanted to become a footballer, only to traverse a world of seedy crimes and end up as a main man in the end.
