Two months after sharing dais with actor-politician Vijay and criticising the ruling DMK as a party of dynasts, former VCK leader Aadhav Arjuna on Friday joined Vijay’s Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK). He will be the general secretary for election campaign management. Arjuna will play a crucial role in strategising Vijay’s activities in the ensuing 2026 assembly general elections.
On January 31, Arjuna arrived at TVK’s party office at Panaiyur on the outskirts of Chennai to meet with Vijay and formally join the party. He resigned from the VCK after being suspended by the party leader Thol Thirumavalavan for making staunch remarks against VCK’s ally DMK.
According to highly placed sources close to Vijay, Aadhav was roped in after several rounds of deliberations. Sources say he met with Vijay at least a couple of times after the Ambedkar book launch event on December 6th and held detailed discussions.
On January 29, Arujna met with Vijay at his Panaiyur residence and later the actor expressed “confidence in Arujna and his willingness to rope him in,” said sources.
Arjuna’s consultancy firm Voice of Commons, will be fully involved in developing TVK’s election strategies for the 2026 elections, by transforming the actor’s fan clubs into a political party and bringing in a robust infrastructure to face the election.
Though Vijay launched his party on February 2, 2024, he hasn’t appointed office bearers or set up an infrastructure for the party in the past year. It was only a few days before, the party announced that it would have 120 party districts and at least a dozen office bearers for each district. Out of these 120 districts, the office bearers have been appointed for less than 50 districts until now. Most of the office bearers are those who were part of the fan club or the Vijay Makkal Iyakkam and are new to politics.
Later in a statement, the TVK headquarters said that Arjuna will be the general secretary for election campaign management. The statement also made it clear that the existing power structure in the party - Vijay as the party president, N. Anand as the general secretary and Jhon Arockiasamy as the poll strategist - will continue and the newcomers to the party including Arjuna will work in coordination with them.
The statement signed by Vijay said that Arjun will work alongside Jhon Arcokiasamy who has been working with Vijay since 2023, in strategising every political move by actor Vijay.
Along with Arjuna, CTR Nirmal Kumar who was part of the AIADMK IT wing joined Vijay. Nirmal who was with the BJP till a year before, joined the AIADMK in the run-up to the 2024 parliament polls.
Recently, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palanisami revamped the party structure and appointed new office bearers for the AIADMK IT wing. Nirmal apparently did not get any prominent position in the party. Nirmal has been one of the popular names on social media as he was running Tamil Nadu BJP’s IT wing and then later with the AIADMK.
Apart from Arjuna and Nirmal, RajMohan, yet another prominent face on social media and a YouTuber also joined Vijay on Friday.
Meanwhile, the TVK party members are celebrating the induction of Arjuna and Nirmal, saying that the duo will add strength to the fledgling party. However, for a political party which is yet to decide on its line of politics and policies, an election strategist may not be able to bring laurels.
