Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) emerged as the single-largest party with 108 seats in the 234-member Tamil Nadu Assembly. After the results, Vijay expected to garner support of the smaller parties in the state to reach the majority mark and take oath as the Chief Minister.
However, the numbers game is still not working out for the actor-turned-politician and he has been unable to prove to the Governor so far that he has the support of 118 MLAs required to form the government.
Since Vijay has won from 2 seats and will have to resign from one of them, TVK has effectively 107 MLAs right no. With Congress, CPI and CPM extending support, TVK’s tally reaches 116, still 2 short of the majority mark.
In this situation, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi has emerged as the kingmaker with their 2 MLAs. Even though VCK has given indications that they will support Vijay, they haven’t yet formally announced their support for the coalition. This confusion over VCK stand has delayed the coronation of Vijay as the state CM.
VCK is expected to make its stance clear today, with the party’s chief Thol Thirumavalavan still holding talks with the DMK leadership.
Meanwhile, Vijay had also approached two other smaller parties, AMMK and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) seeking their support but things didn’t materialise. In fact, AMMK chief TTV Dhinakaran later accused TVK supporters of circulating a forged letter of support, and said that their lone MLA supports AIADMK-led NDA alliance.
Vijay has already met the Governor 3 times seeking invitation to form the government but the Governor is still not convinced that he has the required numbers. And with the political developments in the state, confusion is still reigning supreme in the state.
After his blockbuster political debut, Vijay must have thought it will be a fairly straightforward path to the CM office for him now. However, it has proved to be a far from easy path after the elections for the TVK leader.
While oath ceremony is already taking place in Bengal which went to polls at the same time as Tamil Nadu, the southern state is still waiting for the numbers game to fall into place.
