Vijay is no stranger to thrillers and the box office impact of Week 1. True to form, the actor-turned-politician’s first week as Tamil Nadu chief minister has been nothing short of a thriller.
After his swearing-in on May 10 and a successful confidence vote won comfortably, CM C Joseph Vijay marked his debut in office with a righteous political blitz, a viral controversy, a swift backlash and a subplot that broke a party. We’ll get to the subplot later.
Day 1: three orders before sunset
Just after Vijay took oath at Chennai’s Nehru Indoor Stadium before a roaring crowd, his Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) having won 108 seats in the April 23 elections (enough, with the Congress and its Left allies, to form a coalition government), he signed his first three orders.
- Free electricity was doubled from 100 to 200 units for eligible household consumers.
- A new all-female security force, the ‘Singa Pen Sirappu Athiradi Padai’, was established across the state.
- And 65 anti-narcotics task force units were ordered to be set up in each district, the centerpiece of his campaign promise of a “drug-free Tamil Nadu”.
There has been criticism about how these forces do anything other than become new names for existing operations, and whether the state has enough money, as Vijay has spoken of a $10 crore debt he inherited from MP Stalin’s DMK regime.
TASMAC crackdown and boosting drinking age
Two days later, CM Vijay signed an executive order directing the closure of 717 TASMAC liquor outlets within two weeks. All of them operated within 500 meters of places of worship, educational institutions or bus stops. The state’s total outlet count will thus fall from 4,765 to 4,048.
The government also reinforced the legal drinking age of 21, issuing instructions to all remaining TASMAC staff to strictly enforce it, with mandatory identity verification (Aadhaar cards or driving licenses) required whenever the buyer’s age is in doubt.
A reduction in operating hours is also being actively discussed, which could move the current closing time from 10pm to 8am. The decision was welcomed by women’s groups and social organizations that had campaigned for such restrictions for years.
Here there is also a harsh fiscal reality behind the applause. The Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation Limited or TASMAC, which runs these stores, generated more than $48,000 crore in revenue for the state in 2025 alone.
Superstitions of superstars and a U-turn
The same day also brought an embarrassing twist. The government formalized the appointment of astrologer Rickey Radhan Pandit Vettrivel, the man who publicly predicted Vijay’s political rise, as the Chief Minister’s Special Duty Officer (Political). The reaction came from opposition parties, rationalist groups and even TVK’s coalition allies; and later on the floor of the assembly itself.
A petition was also filed in the Madras High Court challenging the appointment for lack of transparent recruitment process and violation of constitutional provisions on equality in public employment.
Less than 24 hours after the order was issued, the government withdrew it. In the assembly, Vijay did not address the issue directly.
Instead, he threw out a sentence: “This government will operate with the speed of a horse and will not indulge in haggling.”
The accusation of bargaining, however, came on May 13.
The ‘rebel’ subplot
The government’s test returned a result that went far beyond confirming Vijay’s majority.
Against an expected number of around 120 votes, the TVK government won with 144 votes.
Because, 25 AIADMK MLAs, led by former ministers SP Velumani and CV Shanmugam, defied the party whip and voted in favor of the TVK. The rebels argued that the whip was itself illegitimate, as it had not been ratified by a legislative party meeting. They said Vijay had the mandate of the people and deserved support.
This meant that the AIADMK, now a distant third in the state, in alliance with the ruling BJP at the Centre, suffered another implosion since the death of party matriarch J. Jayalalithaa in 2016.
The formal leader of the AIADMK, general secretary Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS), who was left with only 22 loyalists, filed disqualification petitions against the defectors that same afternoon. He accused them of being eager for ministerial positions.
The rebel faction, in turn, announced that it would table a resolution demanding that the EPS resign from its positions now that it had lost faith in the majority of the MLAs. The battle between the two AIADMK factions may be taken to court, while the spokesperson, a TVK MLA, will have a big influence on whether the anti-defection law is implemented immediately or not.
The DMK, led by opposition leader Udhayanidhi Stalin, staged a strike ahead of the vote, meaning the TVK is marching smoothly. Vijay doesn’t have numbers of his own yet, but he has more than enough allies, for now.
Anyway, this was just Week 1.
