Around 1.30 pm, under a punishing sun in Tamil Nadu’s Nagercoil town, families hurried along the highway towards Kanniyakumari. On two-wheelers, with infants as young as six months held close, many wore red and gold-yellow mufflers draped around their necks — a visible sign of allegiance. 

They were all headed to see Vijay, the actor-turned-politician and chief of Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK).

On April 12, a Sunday, shops from Thuckalay to Kanniyakumari remained shuttered as crowds poured into the coastal town, where Vijay cycled through the streets as part of his campaign. 

Among them was Suresh Peter from Eraniel town, travelling with his wife Rani and their two-year-old son on a motorbike. When asked why he would make the journey with his young child, in such heat, and despite fears following incidents like the Karur stampede, Peter did not hesitate.

“I would walk miles just to see him,” he said. “This love is in my blood. I want to pass it on to my child, he should carry this love for Vijay to the next generation. He is our leader.”

To an outsider, the devotion may seem excessive, even irrational. But on the ground in poll-bound Tamil Nadu, especially along its coastlines, it signals something deeper: a political shift shaped as much by emotion and identity as by issues, now finding expression in the rise of Vijay and his fledgling party.

At the core of this shift is a deep-seated grievance over political representation. 

Many in the fishing community pointed out that the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has failed to field candidates from among them in key constituencies for decades. 

This perceived exclusion, along with a strong resistance to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as an alternative, has created a political vacuum along the coast. 

This is the space that Vijay steps into. The TVK party is drawing attention not just as a new option, but as a viable one. 

The momentum is further fuelled by long-pending demands such as Scheduled Tribe status, lack of housing rights and title deeds, dissatisfaction with welfare measures including delayed subsidies, and a broader anti-incumbency sentiment — all of which are converging to shape voter behaviour in these coastal constituencies.

Ananya, is just 12 years old from Kovalam area of Kanniyakumari. At least 10 times a day she would remind her parents to vote for Vijay. 

“I voted for All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) all my life, my husband for DMK. Now both my son and daughter are forcing us to vote for Vijay. I have already made up my mind that this time I would vote for TVK,” Nirosini, Ananya’s mother, says.

Many in the region, neither the old nor the young, know who their TVK candidate is. “We will vote looking at the symbol,” said Nirosini.

Peter, a fisherman from Chinnamuttom, says there........

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