As in his countless films, Vijay, the actor, has emerged as the victorious hero, this time in his debut election, vanquishing his rivals. Vijay’s party, the Tamila Vettri Kazhagan (TVK), has decisively trounced the ruling DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA), and the AIADMK-led National Democratic Alliance.The Vijay wave did not spare even Chief Minister MK Stalin. He lost in Kolathur, from where was elected hands down in three previous elections, to a former DMK worker, who joined the TVK only earlier this year after being sidelined in the DMK.Powered by votes from the young, women, minorities and Dalits, and strong anti-incumbency against the DMK government of MK Stalin, Vijay’s historic victory has all the makings of the kind of political shift that Tamil Nadu has seen only twice before: in the defeat of the Congress by the DMK in 1967, and of the DMK by the breakaway MG Ramachandran-led AIADMK in 1977. Unlike the AIADMK that had a pre-election alliance with left parties, the TVK went solo into this alliance.Vijay’s party, TVK, a two-year-old outfit, is leading in about 110 seats, with 118 required for a majority. The DMK, which in 2021 won 133 seats on its own and 159 along with its SPA partners, was trailing far behind with some 60 plus seats, vying for second place with the AIADMK. Chief minister Stalin was trailing behind the TVK candidate in his long time seat of Kolathur in north Chennai. Other DMK bigwigs, including several ministers, were felled across the state.DMK wunderkind Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, also lost. This constituency houses the famous Madurai Meenakshi temple and was being eyed for its communally polarising potential, particularly as it is next to Thiruparankundram, where an old land row between a temple and dargah created communal distrubances in recent months. The saffron party fielded C Jattvibedar, husband of actor Khushboo, the party’s Tamil Nadu unit vice-president. But in an ironic twist, the winner is Madhar Badrudeen, a Muslim candidate and a newcomer to politics, put up by the TVK, whose secular credentials are a silver lining in this election in which people voted for “change” without knowing what Vijay was actually going to change and how.Despite the mega shift away from the two Dravidian parties, the likelihood of a hung Assembly remains high. The TVK’s tally is short of the majority mark, despite coming tantalisingly close to the magic number off 118, one more than the halfway mark in the 234-seat Tamil Nadu assembly. The Congress could be a natural partner. Vijay, whose full name is C Joseph Vijay, is a Christian. In recent times, he has visited churches, mosques and temples seeking to consolidate various religious communities behind him. He has also broken away a significant chunk of Dalit votes from traditional representatives of the community such as Viduthalai Chirthaikal Katchi. The Pattali Makkal Katchi, which is now led by Anbumani Ramadoss, the son of the founder Dr S Ramadoss, also has no big differences with TVK. A hung assembly has been a happy hunting ground for the BJP, so no party should be counted out.In a state where the ruling party gets voted out every five years, the DMK believed it would be able to repeat what Jayalalithaa had pulled off in 2016, which was to lead the AIADMK to a second successive win after her party’s win in 2016. The DMK believed it could achieve this by side-stepping anti-incumbency and framing this election as a battle to keep intact India’s federalism against the BJP’s centralising tendencies, as a battle against Hindutva. It focused on cultural issues such as Hindi imposition and the archaeological significance of Keeladi, and on the Centre’s alleged partisan treatment in allocation of finances, all of which were set to the “south vs north” tune. In all this, the AIADMK’s alliance with the BJP was good campaign meat for the DMK. But TVK was always the X factor, that Stalin believed he could outwit by just refusing to acknowledge Vijay as a political rival. Clearly, none of this resonated with voters.Vijay, on the other hand, kept his focus on the DMK alone, highlighting allegations of corruption against the party and its leaders, and questioning Stalin on his government’s law and order record. Among Vijay’s voters were likely a record number of women, many of them believing that he would do more to “protect” them. Stalin’s flagship programme, Kalaignar Magalir Urimai Thittam (Kalaignar Women’s Rights Grant Scheme), which gave eligible women an assured sum of Rs 1000 per month, was all but forgotten.Something more was at work for Vijay, though. His voters appear to have connected with him not for any particular election promise, which also includes Rs 2,500 per month for women headed households, 8 grams of gold and a silk saree for marriages, and six free LPG cylinders annually. It is clear that beyond a point, populist promises no longer help win elections. The AIADMK too promised Rs 2,000 and a host of other schemes. Such schemes are now taken for granted by the Tamil Nadu voter. The vote for Vijay seems to be have been driven by emotion than by politics or ideology, of which little is known, as he has never given any media interviews.Take for instance the stampede in Karur during a rally by Vijay last September. Had it occurred at DMK or AIADMK rally, the political leader at the spot and the party leadership could not have escaped blame for the 40 deaths that occurred. But the victims of the Karur rally were convinced that their hero was blameless, despite his own irresponsibility that led to the disaster, and were easily convinced that it was all the government’s fault and a conspiracy by the DMK to show Vijay in bad light. The big sign that the DMK feared Vijay’s popularity more than it dared to acknowledge was the government’s failure to register an FIR against the star after the stampede.The challenge for Vijay now is to build a party with real workers instead of fans, and find people with experience and calibre to help in the running of the government.With a likely hung Assembly, and the formation of a TVK ++ government, or a TVK government with outside support, Tamil Nadu can kiss goodbye to the stability of the last few years. The last time the state was led by a minority government was in 2006, when the DMK formed the government with outside support of the PMK. The PMK was, however, a pre-election partner. The DMK has always been a formidable opposition party, and it will keep the inexperienced TVK on its toes. The AIADMK will be out to prove it’s not finished. What Vijay has undoubtedly done though is make it easier for the BJP to storm this Dravidian bastion that it no longer is, despite Vijay’s claim that he is a follower of Periyar and Anna. After winning West Bengal, the Modi-Shah election-winning machine will inevitably turn its focus to the state that has thus far thwarted saffron.