Manickam Tagore Meets CM Vijay at Secretariat to Avert TVK-Congress Coalition Rift

TNCC president Manickam Tagore met Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay at the Secretariat in Chennai on Monday to defuse rising friction between the Congress and TVK, averting a potential collapse of the state's ruling coalition over the next Prime Ministerial candidate.

Differences between the alliance partners were initially triggered when PWD Minister Aadhav Arjuna suggested that the next Prime Minister of India should hail from Tamil Nadu. Following his statement, TVK supporters launched the ‘Vijay for Prime Minister’ campaign, which gained momentum and began trending across social media platforms.

The debate intensified after pollster CVoter conducted a survey in collaboration with a national English magazine. The poll projected Vijay as a potential prime ministerial contender for the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, giving him 9.2 per cent backing. In the same survey, Narendra Modi secured 48 per cent support from respondents, while Rahul Gandhi ranked second with 27 per cent.

As TVK supporters celebrated the survey results, relations between the coalition partners deteriorated. Tagore commented that the TVK cadre refused to emerge from their film fan club mentality. State Minister S. Rajesh Kumar subsequently warned that the Congress would surrender its two ministerial berths in the state cabinet, signaling a possible collapse of ties if TVK failed to endorse Rahul Gandhi for the Prime Minister’s post.

To calm tensions, Tagore shared an allegorical short story on his X account about forest animals, where a fox attempted to drive a wedge between a lion and an elephant that had formed a strong coalition. Sharing the moral of the story, Tagore stated that not every number tells the truth and not every survey represents the voice of the people, advising TVK not to take the survey results seriously.

With the alliance hanging by a thread, Tagore's visit to the Secretariat to hold direct talks with Vijay resolved the discord and stabilized the ruling coalition.