Is Vijay’s Tamil Nadu win a referendum on celebrity worship?

Saying that this assumption aged poorly is an understatement.

In the weeks leading up to the election, I found myself watching footage from Vijay’s rallies. Not political gatherings in the traditional sense, but something closer to a first-day, first-show frenzy. Young men climbing barricades, chanting his name, phones raised not to record a speech, but to capture proximity. The energy wasn’t about policy—it was about presence. His manifesto was ambitious, his promises sweeping, but they felt almost incidental to the spectacle unfolding around him.

It was very clear that people didn’t come to evaluate Vijay as a politician, definitely not as the potential chief minister of Tamil Nadu.

The paradigm shift between that experience and the ballot box was nothing short of unfamiliar. Because what looked like admiration began to resemble mobilisation—and what felt like fandom started behaving like a very loyal vote bank.

Which raises a more unsettling question than how Vijay won.

Vijay’s controversies didn’t cost him

Over the years, Vijay has not just been the centre of adulation—he has also been the subject of persistent media scrutiny and relentless social media chatter. Headlines and timelines have, at different moments, been dominated by reports and speculation: from questions raised around the Karur stampede that killed dozens to tabloid-fuelled conversations about adultery allegations to friction with the censor board over Jana Nayagan. None of this exists in a vacuum. In any conventional political career, even the perception of such controversies tends to accumulate, shaping public doubt and electoral risk.

Here, they seemed to barely register.

Because if the noise suggested vulnerability, the result suggested the opposite. Vijay didn’t just perform well—his party surged past the 100-seat mark in a 234-member Assembly, dislodging the dominance of M K Stalin and his DMK in what was widely considered secure terrain. In one of the most telling contests, a relatively lesser-known face from Vijay’s party managed to defeat the sitting chief minister in his own stronghold—an outcome that felt less like a verdict on the candidate and more like a transfer of the star’s political capital.

The pattern becomes even clearer online. Social media, which often prides itself on holding power accountable, appears just as capable of rallying to protect it. Conversations around Vijay—whether about political decisions or personal rumours—are frequently met with swift defence, reframed as targeted attacks or dismissed as irrelevant. The specifics begin to matter less than the instinct to stand by.

In traditional politics, controversy creates distance between a leader and the voter. In celebrity politics, it can do the opposite.

And in Vijay’s case, that inversion raises a difficult question: when scrutiny fails to translate into electoral consequence, is celebrity worship merely cultural—or has it become decisively political?

The strategist and the superstar

If Vijay’s victory feels like a story of scale, Prashant Kishor’s loss feels like one about limits.

Both entered electoral politics as outsiders. Both built new parties almost from scratch. Both positioned themselves as the central, recognisable faces of their respective campaigns—one in Tamil Nadu, the other in Bihar. On paper, their trajectories should have been comparable. In reality, they could not have diverged more sharply.

Kishor chose immersion. His padyatra across Bihar was designed to listen before speaking: to translate lived grievances into a “people-first” political blueprint. His campaign was built on consultation, data, and the slow work of credibility. It was, in many ways, politics as it is ideally imagined.

Vijay’s campaign operated on a different frequency. His rallies were expansive, high-energy events, drawing crowds that often resembled film premieres more than political meetings. Media coverage and online discourse frequently focused less on policy articulation and more on scale, presence, and persona—even when questions were raised about crowd management at some events. The conversation rarely stayed there.

And then came the verdict.

Kishor, despite the groundwork, walked away with no seats. Vijay, with a party barely two years old, crossed the 100-seat mark.

The contrast is difficult to ignore. One man spent months trying to understand voters. The other spent decades being understood by them.

Which raises an uncomfortable possibility: that in contemporary politics, connection is built and not inherited. And when that inheritance comes pre-loaded with devotion, it may not need to be tested at all.

A mandate of celebrity worship culture

It is tempting to read this moment as a verdict on Vijay—his appeal, his timing, his ability to convert stardom into state power. But that may be the easier reading. The more uncomfortable one turns the lens outward.

Because what this election ultimately foregrounds is not just a political shift, but the consolidation of celebrity worship culture as a decisive electoral force. A culture where familiarity can outweigh scrutiny, where recognition can substitute record, and where the emotional contract between star and audience begins to resemble a political mandate.

Vijay did not arrive in politics as an unknown quantity. He arrived pre-written, with his image shaped over decades, his persona already negotiated in the public imagination. For many voters, the act of choosing him may not have felt like a leap into uncertainty, but a continuation of something already known. In that sense, the mandate is not just about persuasion. It is about comfort.

And that is precisely where the unease lies.

Because when celebrity worship culture begins to dictate electoral outcomes, it does more than elevate a star—it lowers the bar of what we demand from those in power. If a first-time party can sweep a 234-member Assembly on the back of a single face, if individual candidates become interchangeable carriers of borrowed charisma, and if scrutiny—whether from media or public discourse—fails to translate into consequence, then this is not just a political shift. It is a civic one.

This isn’t about whether Vijay deserved to win. It’s about whether we are asking enough before we decide who should.

Because in the end, the real verdict may not be on the leader we elected, but on the standards we chose to set.