Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, the year-old party founded by the Tamil film star Vijay, secured the support of one hundred and twenty-three members of the new Tamil Nadu legislative assembly on Saturday, crossing the 118-seat majority threshold and bringing to a close fifty-nine years of unbroken government by one of the two main Dravidian parties. The breakthrough came after the Indian National Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India and the Dalit-led Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi confirmed they would back a TVK-led administration.
TVK had won 108 of the 234 seats outright when results were declared on Monday May 4, well short of the majority but ten ahead of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and far ahead of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the two parties that have alternated in power in Chennai since 1967. Vijay, who founded TVK in February last year, met Governor Rajendra Arlekar at Raj Bhavan on Tuesday to formally stake a claim to government.
The supporting parties had spent the week extracting commitments on a long list of policy concessions. The Congress wing demanded restoration of the state's ten-per-cent reservation for vanniyars within the most-backward-class quota. The VCK insisted on dedicated allocations for Dalit housing and on the reopening of the Pollachi rape case investigation. The two communist parties pressed for a public-sector hiring drive and a cap on private school fees.
A senior TVK office bearer said in Chennai on Saturday that the alliance had also agreed on a common minimum programme covering free electricity for households consuming up to one hundred units per month, an increase in the old-age pension to ₹3,000, a state-funded scheme to clear loans of small farmers, and the establishment of a Tamil Nadu pharmaceutical procurement corporation modelled on the Karnataka equivalent.
Vijay is expected to be sworn in as chief minister at the Government Estate in Chennai on Wednesday, with Governor Arlekar administering the oath of office. The TVK leader has indicated he will give the home and finance portfolios to senior figures from his own party, while reserving education for the Congress and rural development for the CPI(M). The VCK has been offered a single cabinet portfolio with responsibility for adi-dravidar welfare.
In Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office issued a brief statement congratulating Vijay and saying the Centre would work with "the new government in Chennai for the development of Tamil Nadu". The DMK president, M.K. Stalin, conceded the result on Friday and confirmed he would lead the opposition in the new assembly. The AIADMK, with twenty-three seats and reduced to a third place for only the second time in its fifty-three-year history, has yet to confirm a parliamentary leader.