What kind of politics compels people to die for their leaders?In Tamil NaduThat is not rhetorical.It has happened again and again – in moments of sadness, in moments of defeat, and, as seen last week VictoryFrantic talks of government formation, even in anticipation of power.But this is not a new story. Tamil Nadu has seen this before.It is December 1987, and Tamil Nadu is in mourning.The streets are filled with mourners. Men cry openly outside party offices. Some supporters drink poison. Others set themselves on fire. The grief throughout the state turned deadly when the news spread that MG Ramachandran had died.He was the founder of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), a veteran of Tamil cinema and the first actor-Chief Minister of the state. But to millions he was much greater than any position he held. He was ‘Puraichi Thalaivar’, the revolutionary leader, the man who came out of the silver screen into their lives as a protector, provider and hero.

MGR ruled Tamil Nadu for more than a decade and won three consecutive terms before dying in office. His death does not mark the end of just one chief minister. For many, it felt like the loss of someone much closer to them – a parent, almost family.This would not be the last time Tamil Nadu would see sorrow turn into tragedy.This pattern returned again and again, each time reminding the state that its politics was never merely electoral.In 2001, when J Jayalalithaa had to step down after being convicted on corruption charges, her supporters took their own lives. In 2014, when he was once again sent to jail, the state witnessed another wave of mourning – suicide, self-immolation and heart attack due to shock.After her death in 2016, the AIADMK claimed that at least 470 supporters died mourning the death of the woman they affectionately called ‘Amma’.Then came Vijay.In September 2025, lakhs of people gathered in Karur to catch a glimpse of Tamil cinema’s current superstar as he moved closer to political power. People stood for hours in the hot sun, waiting for the man whom many already saw as their next savior. By the time the meeting ended, 41 people were dead.For a state that has long blurred the line between screen idol and political messiah, Vijay’s rise was no exception. It was the latest chapter in a familiar script.

Voting for the Dalit class?

Tamil Nadu’s voting behavior often reflects a distinct political logic where identities are acknowledged but not always put forward politically. While there is deep social stratification in the state, with Scheduled Castes making up about 20% of the population and broader SC/ST/OBC groups more than 75%, electoral appeal often shifts away from narrow caste or religious integration towards figures who offer more universal identities of suffering and upliftment. Religious demography further underlines this complexity, with Hindus at 87.58%, Muslims at 5.86% and Christians at 6.12%, yet electoral mobilization rarely tracks these categories clearly. Instead, political legitimacy is often constructed through stories of deprivation, conflict, and moral security, allowing leaders to cross identity boundaries without abandoning them entirely. This is where the ‘underdog’ or ‘rescuer from within’ template becomes politically powerful. leaders like mg Ramachandran And Karunanidhi Gave an example of this change. His political identity was built less on elite authority and more on autobiographical suffering, poverty, hunger and the hardships of life, which he clearly translated into policy imagination. In fact, MGR’s His Cabinet’s first question about “who experienced childhood poverty” was not merely symbolic, it reinforced a governing ethos rooted in empathy as experience. Welfare schemes for school children and marginalized communities further institutionalized this ethos, while handing over administrative control to trusted officials allowed emotional leadership to co-exist with technocratic governance. In this framework, people like Vijay, who are socially identified with the Vellalar Christian community but from politically elite backgrounds, can be read as inheritors of a long pattern where leaders do not reject identity but rather strategically dilute it into a broader language of shared deprivation and moral universalism.

How did cinema become political training in Tamil Nadu?

In Tamil Nadu, the transition from cinema to politics is no exception to this pattern; It is integral to how the system evolved. Its foundation was laid when CN Annadurai and M Karunanidhi turned theater and screenwriting into political tools. Karunanidhi’s long career, from screenwriter to five-time chief minister, set an example that narrative skills could be translated into political authority.

But MG Ramachandran transformed that relationship into a mass political structure. Already a major film star, MGR took his on-screen persona of philanthropic patron straight into electoral politics, founding the AIADMK and becoming Chief Minister in 1977. His image as a “man of the people” made the boundary between character and leader increasingly irrelevant to large sections of the electorate.That model was consolidated and intensified by J Jayalalitha. After a successful film career, she entered politics under the mentorship of MGR and later created her political identity as “Amma”, establishing personal symbolism and authority in welfare delivery. MGR and Jayalalitha together transformed the actor-led leadership from a temporary political experiment into a sustainable governing structure.

Fan clubs got organized

Over time, this pattern ceased to be about individual figures and became a repeatable political template. Tamil Nadu politics began to regard cinematic visibility as pre-political legitimacy. The actor was not just a candidate, he was already a public figure with emotional reach to a large audience.This was strengthened by the Dravidian political tradition itself, which had long used cinema as a communication medium. As academic studies of Tamil cinema show, the boundary between cinema and politics in the state has become structurally blurred, with film serving as a vehicle for entertainment as well as ideological messages.Within this ecosystem, fan cultures played an important role. Fan clubs of stars like MGR and later Rajinikanth functioned as organized social networks, often involved in welfare activities and local mobilization. These structures later became informal political infrastructure, capable of becoming active during elections.The durability of this model is demonstrated by how often it reappears across generations. After MGR and Jayalalitha, subsequent leaders have attempted to retrace this path with varying success, including the anticipation surrounding Vijayakanth and, more recently, Rajinikanth, whose political entry was widely expected but ultimately did not happen.Yet the underlying structure remained intact: Tamil Nadu continues to create a political environment where cinematic identity is assumed as credibility, and where mass recognition often precedes organizational politics.

‘Mother, Thalapathi‘: When leaders get titles from fans

In Tamil Nadu politics, leaders are rarely treated as distant functionaries. They are included in the vocabulary of the family itself. Titles like ‘Thalaivar’ and ‘Amma’ are not stylistic choices – they are political gestures that replace institutional distance with emotional closeness. Once this shift occurs, the relationship between leader and follower ceases to be transactional and becomes personal.This form of attachment already existed with social media and continues to this day. Long before digital fans, Tamil cinema had already created a system of parasocial bonding where audiences formed one-sided emotional relationships with stars who appeared repeatedly on screen as protectors, providers, and moral anchors. In a state where cinema is deeply embedded in everyday life – from street posters to festival soundtracks – these screen identities easily spill over into political perception.The Dravidian political tradition enhanced this structure. Welfare politics reinforced the idea that the leader is not just a decision maker but a direct source of material dignity. For large sections of the electorate, access to rice, subsidies, housing or public services is symbolically linked to the personal commitment of the leader. Over time, political support became tied not only to ideology, but also to the feeling of being seen and provided for.

Within this framework, personalities like MG Ramachandran and J Jayalalitha were transformed into emotional institutions. MGR’s on-screen image as a benevolent savior and Jayalalitha’s carefully constructed persona as “Amma” made political loyalty closer to familial dependence than civic preference.The same emotional architecture is visible in Vijay’s rise. Vijay, known as “Thalapathy” to his fan base, entered politics with an already established emotional economy built over decades of cinema. His films repeatedly position him as protector, arbiter, and moral force – roles that do not end when he exits the theater, in a context where screen identities constantly circulate in public life.What arises from this is not mere popularity, but an emotional contract. Advocates do not simply evaluate performance or policy; They invest identity, dignity and aspiration in a person who symbolically houses their social presence. In such a system, political loyalty is less about persuasion in the traditional sense and more about belonging – to a leader who is experienced not as a representative, but as an extension of oneself.

Why Vijay’s victory was not a surprise but a continuation of this culture

TVK chief Vijay won 110 seats and became the largest party in the Tamil Nadu elections. However, no exit poll had predicted a sweep of this level. But it was inevitable.In this historical context, the emergence of Vijay and his party TVK fits into, rather than breaks, a long-established pattern. His transformation reflected the same structural conditions that had shaped earlier actor-politicians: pre-existing fan bases, emotional identification with screen roles, and a political culture that already recognized cinematic popularity as a form of legitimacy.What has changed is the scale and urgency. By the time Vijay formally entered politics in mid-2020, Tamil Nadu had half a century of precedent for converting cinematic stardom into electoral mobilization. Their entry does not signal the invention of a new model, but rather a continuation of the old model, adapted to a new media environment and a larger, more organized fan ecosystem.

Like Odysseus emerging from years of conflict and uncertainty to reclaim his place in Ithaca, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s decade-long journey in the BJP reflects his transition from an “outsider” in the Sangh-dominated party to one of its most trusted troubleshooters in a region where the BJP was once little more than a political footnote.Taking oath for a second time as Assam chief minister on Monday after delivering an overwhelming mandate to the BJP-led NDA, Himanta Biswa Sarma’s leadership arc within the party has been almost inversely proportional to the Congress’s precipitous decline in Assam and, by and large, the entire Northeast.

Himanta’s firm hold over the Assam BJP stemmed largely from his ability to meet the high command’s expectations on electoral expansion, organisational control and, most importantly, negotiating peace accords in regions that had long remained politically volatile.After winning the BJP a brute majority in the 2026 Assam assembly polls, the question now is whether Himanta Biswa Sarma stands at par with chief ministers like Yogi Adityanath and Devendra Fadnavis, who are widely regarded as disciplined Sangh loyalists and potential next generation leaders of the BJP in the post Modi-Shah era.In a party shaped by the RSS ecosystem and its unwritten tests of “ideological purity”, Sarma remains something of an aberration, with no saffron lineage from his youth, no years as a pracharak and not even a dramatic ideological transformation story. He joined the BJP on August 23, 2015, after spending 14 years in the Congress mastering the power politics of Guwahati and Delhi.The big transitionSarma’s political career began far removed from the saffron fold as he joined the Congress in the 1990s and won the Jalukbari seat in Guwahati in 2001, marking the beginning of an electoral streak that saw him secure five consecutive victories from the constituency, four on a Congress ticket and one with the BJP. By 2006, he had emerged as one of chief minister Tarun Gogoi’s most trusted lieutenants, playing a central role in managing the Congress’s assembly campaigns in both 2006 and 2011.The 2011 election, in particular, cemented Sarma’s reputation as a formidable political strategist after the Congress secured an unprecedented 78 seats in the 126-member assam assembly, the party’s best-ever performance in the state. During his 12 years in the Gogoi cabinet, Sarma handled several key portfolios, including Finance, Health, Education, Agriculture and Planning.However, Sarma’s rise ultimately collided with a dilemma that has long shaped the Congress party’s internal power structure, balancing the interests of entrenched political legacies against the ambitions of influential outsiders. In a succession battle with the Gogoi family, Sarma was sidelined when Gaurav Gogoi was projected as the future face of Assam Congress leadership instead of him.

When a section of Congress legislators from Assam began backing Sarma as a potential successor to Tarun Gogoi in 2014, the then chief minister instead projected his son, Gaurav Gogoi, as a prominent face of the party’s next generation. The development widened the rift between Sarma and the Congress leadership, despite his central role in managing the party’s electoral machinery in Assam.The tensions deepened amid reports that Rahul Gandhi declined to meet a group of dissatisfied Assam Congress leaders who had travelled to Delhi seeking an audience with the party high command. The episode came to symbolise, for many within the state unit, the growing disconnect between the Congress leadership and its regional power centres.Sarma resigned from all Congress positions on July 21, 2014, and stepped down from the Assam Assembly on September 15, 2015, formally ending his 14-year association with the party. When news of his move to the BJP emerged on August 23, 2015, Tarun Gogoi called the switch, “good riddance,” and Himanta a “trouble monger”.

Less than a year later, the BJP registered a historic victory in Assam in the 2016 assembly elections, with “trouble monger” Sarma playing a pivotal role in the party’s expansion across the Northeast.Mission NortheastWhen Himanta joined the BJP, Amit Shah, then the BJP’s national president, entrusted him with responsibility to “draw the blueprint for ousting Congress” in 2016. At the time, BJP’s political footprint in the Northeast was negligible with eight Lok Sabha seats uncovered, zero chief ministers, minimal organisational presence. However, Sarma transformed an impossible assignment into inevitability.First, Himanta played a central role in stitching together the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition for the 2016 Assam assembly elections because of which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 60 seats, while its allies, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF), secured 14 and 13 seats respectively, giving the alliance a commanding 87 seats in the 126-member Assembly.

The coalition arithmetic succeeded largely because of Sarma’s political networks and familiarity with the region’s fragmented power structure. He had longstanding ties with leaders of the Bodoland People’s Front, understood the electoral dynamics of the Asom Gana Parishad from years of political competition, and possessed a far deeper grasp of the Northeast’s political terrain than most BJP strategists operating from Delhi.On May 24, 2016, BJP formed its first-ever government in Northeast India with Sarbananda Sonowal as chief minister and Sarma was sworn in as cabinet minister with four crucial portfolios of finance, health, education, and public works.That same day, the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) was created, with Sarma appointed as its convenor. This was not ceremonial as the NEDA meant all seven Northeast states would coordinate their alliances through Himanta’s office, making him the BJP’s single-point coordinator for the entire region.12 elections, one architectSarma’s strategic intervention transformed BJP’s Northeast presence across multiple states and elections:

The unparallel ascent Unlike many leaders who rose through the Sangh ecosystem, Sarma entered the party without years of RSS grooming or a long stint in the cadre hierarchy. A Guwahati-born Brahmin who trained in medicine before entering politics, his ascent within the BJP has been driven less by ideological pedigree and more by political utility.Over the past decade, the BJP transformed the Northeast from a region once dominated by the Congress into one where the party now leads governments in Assam, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, while the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) remains part of ruling arrangements across all eight northeastern states.The 2026 Assam assembly election marked the high point of that expansion with BJP’s 82 seats in Assam. A new trifecta?The comparison between Himanta Biswa Sarma, Devendra Fadnavis and Yogi Adityanath highlights the different routes through which influential BJP leaders have emerged within the party’s power structure.

Fadnavis rose through the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) ecosystem from a young age before becoming Maharashtra chief minister in 2014. Even after the BJP briefly lost power in 2019, he remained central to the party’s political strategy in the state, eventually returning to government and consolidating his position as one of the BJP’s most important leaders in western India.Yogi Adityanath followed a markedly different trajectory. Associated with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in his youth before entering monastic life under the Gorakhnath Math, he built his political identity through a blend of religious influence and electoral consolidation in Uttar Pradesh. Since becoming chief minister in 2017, he has emerged as one of the BJP’s most prominent mass leaders, leading the party back to power in 2022 on the back of what supporters describe as the “Yogi model”, centred around a strong emphasis on law and order, administrative centralisation and welfare delivery.Sarma’s rise, however, has followed neither the organisational path of Fadnavis nor the ideological-religious route associated with Adityanath. Apart from overtly imbibing the BJP’s politics of Hindutva, what ultimately connects all three leaders is their ability to produce sustained electoral results in politically crucial states and Fadnavis stabilised the BJP’s position in Maharashtra, Adityanath consolidated the party’s dominance in Uttar Pradesh, while Sarma helped transform the Northeast from a historically Congress-dominated region into one where the BJP and the NDA now hold influence across all eight states.The troubleshooter tagWorking in coordination with the Amit Shah-led Union home ministry, Himanta Biswa Sarma emerged as one of the BJP’s principal political negotiators in the Northeast’s long-running insurgency landscape. During the BJP’s tenure in Assam, the Centre signed a series of major peace accords with armed and ethnic groups, including the 2020 Bodo Peace Accord with factions of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), the 2021 Karbi Anglong agreement with five insurgent organisations, the 2022 Adivasi peace pact, and the 2023 agreement with the pro-talks faction of ULFA.

The accords, which focused on disarmament, rehabilitation, economic packages and greater political representation, helped bring thousands of former militants into the mainstream. Alongside security operations and tighter border management, the agreements became central to the BJP’s broader political narrative that the Northeast was gradually shifting from decades of insurgency-driven instability towards infrastructure-led development and deeper integration with the national mainstream.With the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) securing 102 seats in the 126-member assembly, the mandate reinforced Sarma’s position within the BJP’s emerging regional power structure. Over the past decade, he has evolved from a state-level strategist into one of the party’s most influential political managers, with a role that now extends beyond Assam into the wider Northeast through coalition management and electoral coordination.

In many ways, Himanta Biswa Sarma’s rise reflects the BJP’s evolving internal power structure, where a leader once seen as a political outsider to the Sangh ecosystem now finds himself counted among the party’s emerging next-generation power centres, not through organisational lineage but through sustained electoral success and strategic expansion in one of India’s most politically complex regions.

Last updated:May 12, 2026, 14:10 IST

Police say that the accused used technology to avoid detection. Soon after the murder, Nepali-origin Kalpana and her gang reportedly threw away their old mobile phones to prevent tracking.

A murder in the high-security Jubilee Hills area of ​​Hyderabad has sparked widespread concern across the Telugu states. The police investigation into the murder of 62-year-old Tanuja, wife of 1986 batch IPS officer Vinay Ranjan Ray, who retired as Director General of Prisons in 2019, has revealed a targeted robbery network run by the family’s domestic help.

According to investigators, the main accused identified as Kalpana was not just an ordinary domestic help but was allegedly part of a well-planned robbery gang that had a history of targeting rich houses in several cities.

Domestic servant allegedly planned the robbery for months

According to reports, Kalpana, who is believed to be of Nepali origin, was working at the retired IPS officer’s residence for about eight months. During this period, he reportedly gained the trust of the family while secretly planning a major robbery.

Police suspect that she was in constant touch with a Pune-based associate named Suresh and allegedly received instructions from him on a regular basis. Investigators believe that the gang started actively planning the operation after Vinay Ranjan Ray moved to Bengaluru for work.

Soon after, three more gang members reportedly reached Hyderabad from Pune. Police say the group conducted surveillance around the house for about five days and carefully studied CCTV blind spots and possible escape routes before committing the crime.

according to a times of India In the report, Suresh said that CCTV footage captured three unidentified people entering the bungalow from the main gate at around 1 am. They came out of the gate between 2 am and 2.30 am. He further said that they were not wearing masks and two of them had iron rods and one had a bag.

Midnight murder and planned escape

According to the investigation, the gang allegedly murdered Tanuja late Thursday night before fleeing the house with gold jewellery, cash and other valuables.

Police say the accused adopted a carefully planned escape strategy to avoid immediate arrest. The suspects first traveled by auto-rickshaw to Nampally railway station and boarded the Telangana Express train.

The investigators initially suspected that the gang was heading towards Nagpur and they increased surveillance there. However, Kalpana reportedly changed course midway to avoid tracking and got down at Kazipet railway station. Police now suspect that the accused might have fled towards Mumbai or Delhi via bus route.

How fake identities helped gangs escape police

Investigators say the accused used technology cleverly to avoid detection. Soon after the murder, the gang reportedly discarded their old mobile phones and bought new mobile phones and SIM cards to prevent police tracking.

Police sources claim that Kalpana constantly changed routes and methods of communication to avoid entering the surveillance network. Authorities have currently detained his parents and brother-in-law in Pune for questioning.

Preliminary investigation reportedly indicates that Kalpana’s prior criminal background may be linked to similar robbery cases.

Multi-city crime network under investigation

Police believe that the gang may have carried out similar thefts in Bengaluru earlier also. Investigators suspect that the accused had used fake Aadhaar and voter ID cards to secure jobs as domestic servants before targeting homes for robbery.

Following the Hyderabad massacre, details of the accused have now been shared with police teams in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Pune as part of a wider investigation into the gang’s activities.

Police verification again in focus

This sensational case has once again raised concerns over police verification of domestic workers and support staff in high-profile residential areas.

Officials say the incident highlights how important background checks have become, especially in cities where many families hire workers through informal networks without proper identity verification.

Police have urged Hyderabad residents to thoroughly verify the background and identity documents of domestic workers before hiring them.