The Tamil Nadu election outcome fell short of the majority mark of 118 seats in a House of 234 seats, with the TVK headed by Vijay emerging as the single largest party with 104 seats. In a hung Assembly, Congress, despite lending unconditional support with its six seats, could not cobble together a majority. The Governor and erstwhile Goan BJP member insisted that Vijay secure 118 signatures of support, an act unprecedented in recent political history.
Many permutations are on the anvil in Tamil Nadu, with smaller parties vying to cobble together numbers, prominent among them VCK with two seats and CPM with two seats, still falling short by a few more seats. DMK, with around 50 seats, is hesitantly coming forward to fit into the equation, but sticking to its own ideology unless there is a breakaway faction within it to do so.
Actor-cum-politician Vijay will have to test his political acumen in the coming days to draw parties and convince certain factions to lend support to his debutant party to drive home the advantage of a simple majority. Pre-elections, Vijay rode high on the back of an anti-incumbency wave produced by the Dravidian parties, namely DMK and AIADMK, who were in power for 60 years. There are no signs of rapid development seen all over Tamil Nadu, resulting in frustration and testing a relatively new party in TVK, which mustered fewer seats only to provide a minority government.
In such a scenario, pulling strings would have been at the highest levels on all fronts. In the coming days, all stakeholders would have to come together and work out a simple majority for the purpose of filling the political vacuum on the southern shores of the country.
