Thalapathy Vijay's maiden political rally on Sunday attracted huge crowds running into several lakhs. While reports are saying that the crowd was more than six lakh, nobody knows the exact figure at the moment.
Political analysts and enthusiasts are reminded of the 2008 rally by Chiranjeevi, another actor-turned-politician like Vijay. Chiru's maiden rally was estimated to have attracted a million-strong crowd.
Vijay's fans are pointing at the crowd numbers on Sunday as proof that their favourite actor is going to become Chief Minister in 2026. Chiranjeevi's fans had similar hopes in 2008 after PRP's maiden rally became a thundering success. At that time, YS Rajasekhar Reddy was ostensibly nervous after the success of the new party's mass gathering. It's another matter that the PRP only ended up helping the Congress party by splitting the anti-government vote. YSR returned to power in 2009.
It's believed that Vijay, too, is going to end up doing just that in 2026 - help the ruling DMK retain power by dividing the anti-government vote. There is a theory that he is a DMK plant in politics.
