Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) created a political earthquake in Tamil Nadu by breaking the Dravidian duopoly of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) on state politics. With 108 MLAs in an assembly of 234, TVK is certainly on the cusp of forming the government. What really worked for TVK and its founder, who was a movie star but a political novice? In hindsight, it may have been demographics: a party represented by a leader and a candidate who was closer to the age bracket of the state’s voters than the older set of the DMK and AIADMK alliances.
Vijay himself is in his early fifties, with his affidavits stating that he is 51, though his perceived age could be lower thanks to his real persona, where he still plays the role of an angry young man. Stalin and Edappadi K Palaniswami, leaders of the DMK and AIADMK alliances, are listed as 72 years old in their affidavits. According to projections by the National Population Commission, the median age in Tamil Nadu was 36.35 years on March 1, 2026, about six years older than the national average. The average age of the population who could actually vote would certainly be much higher. But this election has also seen anecdotal accounts of even young people of voting age convincing their family members of voting age to vote for Vijay and TVK. This means that Vijay was much closer to the state’s average age demographic than his competitors.
What made Vijay’s case against the establishment and the DMK and AIADMK alliances stronger was the selection of his candidates. Hizb ut-Tahrir has deleted the election affidavit data of all candidates from the DMK, AIADMK and TVK alliances (they fought alone) to compare their age profile. The average age of a TVK nominee – the age of the 117th candidate if all 234 TVK nominees are arranged in ascending order by age – was 44 years. The comparative figure was 57 for the DMK and 58 for the AIADMK. The gap remained almost unchanged at the alliance level, at 57 for the DMK+ alliance and 56.5 for the ADMK+ alliance. TVK did not enter into any alliance before the elections but supported an independent candidate in Edapadi. Their average age remains the same whether or not this independent candidate is included in the calculation.
Even if we look at age profiles at more detailed levels, the trend does not change. The decile analysis, which divides the candidates into ten equal groups from youngest to oldest, shows that at almost every point of the distribution, TVK candidates were younger than DMK and AIADMK candidates. TVK candidates ranged in age from 28 to 78 years. The ages of the DMK candidates ranged from 28 to 87, while the ages of the AIADMK candidates ranged from 29 to 79. More than 70% of the TVK candidates were below 50 years of age. For the DMK, this share was about 31%, and for the AIADMK it was about 20%. Nearly one in three TVK candidates were under 40, compared to just 6% for the DMK and 5% for the AIADMK. On the other hand, only about 10% of TVK candidates were aged 60 or above, compared to 39% for the DMK and 46% for the AIADMK. (See chart 1)
This candidate profile closely matched the pattern of voting by age suggested by exit polls. According to Axis My India – the only poll that got TVK’s vote share almost exactly right – TVK had its strongest support among younger voters, at 68% among those aged 18 to 19, and 59% among those aged 20 to 29. Its support declined with each older age group, falling to 20% among voters ages 50 to 59 and 14% among those 60 and older. The DMK+ showed the opposite pattern, rising from 16% among first-time voters to 49% among those aged 60 and above. The AIADMK+ also performed better among older voters than among younger voters. (See chart 2)
What’s next for Vijay from here? Governing is often more difficult than winning elections, and the burden of aspirations will be enormous. But his political success cannot be compared with that of M G Ramachandran who joined the DMK at the age of 45 and helped establish it as the ruling party in Tamil Nadu almost as Vijay is today. He founded the AIADMK in 1972 and led it to power in 1977. Can Vijay reinvent the Dravidian political lineage for his generation of Tamils? Only time will tell.
