With 108 MLAs in an assembly of 234, TVK is certainly at the cusp of government formation. (ANI file picture)
Vijay himself is in the early fifties, with his affidavits listing him at 51, although his perceived age could well be lower thanks to his reel-life persona, where he still plays the angry young man. Stalin and Edappadi K Palaniswami, the leaders of the DMK and AIADMK alliances, are listed as 72 years old by their affidavits. According to projections by the National Commission on Population, Tamil Nadu’s median age was 36.35 years on March 1, 2026, around six years older than the national average. To be sure, the median age of the population that can actually vote will be significantly higher. But this election has also seen anecdotal accounts of even non-voting-age youngsters convincing their voting-age family members to vote for Vijay and TVK. This means Vijay was much closer to the state’s average demographic age than his competitors.
Even if one were to look at age-profiles at a more disaggregated levels, the trend does not change. A decile analysis, which divides candidates into ten equal groups from youngest to oldest, shows that at almost every point in the distribution, TVK’s candidates were younger than those of the DMK and AIADMK. TVK’s candidates ranged from 28 to 78 years. The DMK’s candidates ranged from 28 to 87, while the AIADMK’s ranged from 29 to 79. More than 70% of TVK’s candidates were below 50. For the DMK, this share was about 31%, and for the AIADMK it was about 20%. Nearly one in three TVK candidates was below 40, compared with just 6% for the DMK and 5% for the AIADMK. At the other end, only about 10% of TVK candidates were aged 60 or above, against 39% for the DMK and 46% for the AIADMK.
This candidate profile closely matched the age-wise voting pattern suggested by exit polls. According to Axis My India – the only poll which got TVK’s vote share almost right – TVK had its strongest support among the youngest voters, with 68% among those aged 18-19 and 59% among those aged 20-29. Its support fell with each older age group, dropping to 20% among voters aged 50-59 and 14% among those aged 60 and above. DMK+ showed the reverse pattern, rising from 16% among first-time voters to 49% among those aged 60 and above. AIADMK+ too did better among older voters than among the young.
What next for Vijay from here? Governing is often more difficult than winning elections and the burden of aspirations will be huge. But his political success cannot not be compared with that of M G Ramachandran who joined DMK at the age of 45 and helped establish it as a ruling party in Tamil Nadu at the almost the same as Vijay is today. He founded the AIADMK in 1972 led it to power in 1977. Can Vijay reinvent the Dravidian political lineage for his generation of Tamilians ? Only time will tell.
