What Rajinikanth’s entry into politics means for the upcoming Tamil Nadu elections

Rajinikanth is back on the election bandwagon. He has announced, for the umpteenth time, he will enter the political arena in Tamil Nadu. This time, he is targeting the 2021 Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu. As memes and social media posts do their rounds, it has become clear that the superstar will launch his party in January next year, just five months before the elections.
Rajinikanth​ set to make electoral debut in Tamil Nadu polls, says will launch his political party in January 2021

Today, Kamal Haasan’s party, the Makkal Neethi Maiam, is also sure to contest the elections in Tamil Nadu. The party was launched in 2018, but failed to win in any seat in the 2019 Parliamentary elections. However, experts think that he will be able to achieve a higher level of success during the Assembly elections.

The success of Karunanidhi, Jayalaithaa and MGR at the hustings is a trendsetter in Tamil Nadu. Although all three are not alive, they continue to exert influence over the voters. Both Jayalalithaa, popularly called Amma (Mother), and MGR, called Vadhiyar (teacher), were highly popular actors. More than Karunanidhi, who was a highly regarded screenplay writer, it was Jayalalithaa and MGR who established the personality cult in Tamil Nadu. It was not their ideology, politics or policies, but their personality that gained a cult following in the southern state.

“It would be completely trivialising Karunanidhi to say he was a screenwriter. He was a powerful orator and an idealogue,” he told MoneyControl.com.

This trend doesn’t end there. Regardless of how actors Ajith and Vijay feel on the subject of entering politics, their fans vocally want them to contest. Actor Vijay Sethupathi, who has won the admiration of many fans, seems to have the urge to enter politics. He is widely credited as Makkal Selvan, which means ‘Hero of the Masses’ in Tamil.

“Many youth see themselves as Vijay fans. Five percent of Rajinikanth’s votes will come from them,” said Samas, a political observer.

Rajinikanth actually forayed into politics in 1996, when he supported the Dravida Makkal Katchi-Tamil Maanila Congress alliance and issued a much-watched statement on Kalanidhi Maran’s newly-launched Sun TV saying that even God cannot save Tamil Nadu if chief minister and AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa is elected to power. The DMK-TMC alliance swept the elections.

However, experts point out that Rajnikanth has never commanded this kind of loyalty after 1996. “Politics that began with MGR will end with Rajinikanth in Tamil Nadu. The future belongs to the Dravidian parties. I foresee a DMK rout in the upcoming Assembly elections in 2021,” says Samas who is an editorial writer at the Tamil edition of The Hindu.

Rajinikanth entered cinema with 1975’s Apoorva Ragangal (Rare Tunes). For a while, he was a delightful villain and then graduated to become a cliched hero and then a highly paid anti-hero. In the films of the 1990s like Annamalai, Baashha and Padayappa, he is brilliant as the hero with shades of negativity. With Rajinikanth it is all style with little substance. He doesn’t do a whole lot of acting, but breezes through his scenes with a gifted panache.

“During his early years, Rajinikanth exhibited a certain kind of range. Now, for the past 20 years or above, he has been an iconic hero along the lines of MGR. He has been successful in that. But his acting has suffered as he is caught in an image trap,” said Devibharathi, screenwriter, novelist and political observer.

There has been trenchant criticism against celebrities, particularly from the cine field, entering politics in Tamil Nadu. It’s widely perceived that celebrities take undue advantage of their popularity and ruin the political milieu in the southern state. But we cannot swallow this criticism hook, line and sinker. Karunanidhi had a strong and sound ideology and spent nearly eight decades in politics, MGR was pro-poor and Jayalalithaa was an extremely strong administrator.

For Rajinikanth, an alliance with BJP is a strong possibility. He is seen to have vague rightwing roots. If that alliance is indeed inked, we might see BJP make strong inroads in the upcoming elections. But whatever happens, Rajinikanth will be a deciding factor in 2021.

On December 2, the actor turned 71. Yet another substantial announcement is a distinct possibility.