Actor Vijay on Wednesday, October 27, interacted with newly-elected public representatives who had contested from the All India Thalapathy Vijay Makkal Iyakkam (AITVMI), the fans’ association of the actor, in the recently-held rural local body elections in Tamil Nadu. Elections were held in the nine newly carved districts — Kanchipuram, Chengalpattu, Kallakurichi, Villupuram, Ranipet, Tirupattur, Tenkasi and Tirunelveli — on October 6 and 9.
According to an official press release of AITVMI, actor Vijay congratulated all the elected representatives and asked them to work to address the basic issues of the people, and bring them to the attention of the state and Union government and ensure that they are resolved. The AITVMI surprised many by winning 129 seats of the 169 seats they had contested — a performance better than actor Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam and Seeman’s Naam Thamizhar Katchi (NTK), which drew a blank.
Elections were held to fill 27,003 posts including 140 district panchayat ward members, 74 panchayat unions, 1,381 panchayat union ward members, 2,901 village panchayat presidents and 22,581 village panchayat ward councillors. TVMI members had won in all the nine newly carved districts. Actor Vijay is the president of AITVMI, and it has over 10 lakh members. Anand N is the general secretary of AITVMI. He is a former MLA from the Bussy constituency in Puducherry.
AITVMI is not to be confused with the recently dissolved Vijay Makkal Iyakkam (VMI) — a registered society founded by film director and father of Vijay, SA Chandrasekar. From when it was announced by Chandrasekar last year, Vijay has distanced himself from VMI, publicly discouraging fans to have any association with it. In September this year, the actor filed a civil suit against Chandrasekar and mother Shoba Sekar, seeking to restrain VMI from using his images and name for meetings. This finally led to the dissolution of the organisation on September 27.
AITVMI is not registered with the Election Commission of India. Though the candidates used images of Vijay in the local body elections, they had contested as independent candidates. By interacting with the representatives who were elected, Vijay has hinted that he too wants to foray into active politics in the near future following the likes of MGR, Jayalalithaa and Kamal Haasan.