00:00Okay, let's move on from there to all that's happening on the election trail
00:04because campaigning for Tamil Nadu in the first phase of West Bengal ends tomorrow.
00:09On the penultimate day of the campaigning in Tamil Nadu today,
00:12all the big players were out there.
00:14Rahul Gandhi was campaigning for the Congress candidate,
00:17significantly has not done a joint rally with the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin,
00:22who was campaigning on his own.
00:24Actor Vijay, actor turned politician Vijay of the TVK was campaigning in Chennai.
00:30And we also saw the AIDMK's E. Palani Sami campaigning in his bastions of Western Tamil Nadu.
00:38So all eyes now on what is turning out to be the first three-cornered contest
00:43that Tamil Nadu has had in over four decades.
00:47And all eyes in particular are on actor turned politician Vijay.
00:51Is he the X Factor?
00:53Could an actor politician do what no one else really has done since the great MGR and Jailalita?
01:02And he's also facing trouble because the Madras High Court has now issued a notice to Vijay
01:07on a plea alleging discrepancies in his election affidavits.
01:10The petition is seeking an investigation against him, pointing out that the actor and one of the
01:15assembly constituencies represented his assets by 100 crore rupees.
01:20The two-judge bench observed that non-disclosure of 100 crore is an irregularity.
01:26Notices issued also to the Director General of Income Tax Election Commission of India.
01:32But Vijay is the X Factor.
01:34And can he do, as I said, what no actor politician has done since MGR and Jailalita?
01:41Be a first day, first show hit.
01:43Listen in to one of the leading cinema directors and critics, Hariharan, who I spoke to on my trip to
01:53Chennai.
01:54Listen in.
01:56Mr. Hariharan, I want to know from you and I'm fascinated by it.
02:00It's almost 50 years since the great MGR became the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.
02:04Since then, many other stars have tried their luck in politics.
02:08No one has quite succeeded except Jailalita, who was also a beneficiary of MGR's legacy.
02:13Do you think Vijay can do what MGR did all those years ago?
02:18My sincere feeling, no.
02:20Despite all this fan frenzy, despite all the crowds that he can pull on his own accord.
02:26None of his cadre can do that.
02:28You cannot rush into a party and say, I'm going to do it right now and enthuse the audience or
02:34voters to say, chuck the old party.
02:37It is not easy to dismiss the anti-incumbent factor, you know.
02:41You've got to put a lot of work.
02:43Enormous amount, exactly the way the DMK party put in so much work between 1952 to 1967.
02:5115 years hard work to win the first elections, you know.
02:54You've got to do that.
02:55So, even MGR put in a lot of hard work to build himself before he was ready for politics.
03:01So, you're saying, politics cannot be first day, first show, box office, blockbuster.
03:06No way.
03:07No way.
03:07It has to be on the long run.
03:09MGR was, I think, a fantastic tactician.
03:12He realized that Tamil cinema was the best platform to push his party agenda without calling it DMK, you know.
03:19So, what he did was, he got every film to have a song which would speak about the party manifesto.
03:26So, he had a brilliant man like Pattukote Kalyan Sundaram, he had Marudanai, all of them writing poems for him,
03:32party songs and he would say, let's do it here in this bit and it will be a song.
03:36That song will be completely irrelevant to the larger story but it was a hit.
03:40That's the first part of the story.
03:42The second part is, you know, those were the days when mic set businesses were very busy.
03:47So, every small town, every little village had a record player, a mic set and they would play his songs.
03:55And this was over 20, 25 years, right?
03:57He was in public life MGR before he became the chief minister of Tamil Nadu.
04:03Exactly.
04:03Which is something that perhaps today's stars don't have the patience for.
04:07Absolutely.
04:07I mean, Vijay wants first day, first show, super hit.
04:11That's not possible.
04:12What?
04:13Are you saying that without an organization, without resources, a star cannot succeed in Tamil Nadu just on fan following?
04:21I'll give you another phenomenal example.
04:23A very, very dedicated actor called Vijay Kanth.
04:25Yes.
04:26He came in between.
04:26DMDK.
04:27DMDK.
04:28He worked very hard, you know, to reach out to the public, building free marriage halls, free education, free books,
04:33everything.
04:33He did so much, but he didn't have a bandwidth.
04:37When I mean a band of soldiers who can put the boots on the ground and say, let's march.
04:42He was still a loner.
04:43And they called him captain.
04:45Captain.
04:45Exactly.
04:46Captain Vijay Kanth.
04:47How long can he do it, you know?
04:48So.
04:49So, you're saying a captain needs a team.
04:51Needs a team.
04:52A very good team.
04:53Because there is the fan frenzy that we've seen in Tamil Nadu and there are these fan clubs.
04:59Yes.
04:59Can fan clubs substitute for a party political organization?
05:03No way.
05:04No way.
05:05No way.
05:05A fan club will go, but there are policies to be taken.
05:10You know, you got to go to the panchayas, you got to go to the councillors, you got to go
05:13to the MLC.
05:14Find out what they want.
05:16These people are not capable of doing that.
05:17They will come for a first day for sure, whistle, clap, throw milk on the posters and the banners and
05:23go back.
05:24So, the fan clubs today are dead and gone.
05:27They're dead and gone.
05:28They're dead and gone.
05:28They cannot, these actors cannot afford to maintain these fan clubs.
05:33It is becoming expensive.
05:34Therefore, what you're saying is, A, I'm always struck by the star appeal.
05:39The appeal that a star has with his fans here in Tamil Nadu.
05:43Some of them are keen, therefore, to join politics.
05:47Your words of wisdom to these stars would be, build an organization.
05:52Correct.
05:52MGR benefited from being part of the DMK for almost two decades.
05:56Absolutely.
05:57Before the AIDMK was created.
05:59Yeah, absolutely.
06:00You've got to take time to build an organization.
06:01It has to have a horizontal bit.
06:04It cannot be vertical.
06:05That horizontality is important.
06:07Who are your people on your party?
06:09I mean, I remember in the DMK, there was a stalwarts, you know.
06:11Oh, Nedudjadian, you know, Anbargan, Hande.
06:15These are all big names, you know.
06:16But people want change and people maybe see in a film star a sense of hope.
06:20That a film star will do off-screen what he's doing on-screen.
06:25So, in that sense, does a film star have a head start?
06:29Particularly among the young, because Vijay seems very popular among the young.
06:32They want change.
06:33They want head start.
06:34But they have seen all the change happening in the movie stories.
06:38Every story, there's a change happening.
06:40The hero goes, he fights the villains and he brings change.
06:43Yeah, so they think that that will happen in real life.
06:45That is the problem.
06:46So, they cannot mix fiction with reality.
06:48That is fiction.
06:52Vijay, the X-factor in Tamil Nadu.
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