Cheran Apologises to Vijay for Pre-Election Criticism

Director and actor Cheran has walked back the pointed questions he had put to Vijay in the run-up to the assembly elections, posting a fresh note on Wednesday that congratulates the TVK chief on his 108-seat result and explicitly retracts the earlier criticism. It is a smaller addition to the post-result reactions wave than Rajinikanth or Kamal Haasan’s, but a more candid one, because Cheran is the only name in the cluster who is on the record asking the questions he is now apologising for.

The earlier post, from about a month ago, ran in Tamil and asked the questions a manifesto-side journalist would have asked. A new party that wants votes, Cheran wrote, has to tell people what their problems are, how the party will solve them, what changes it wants to bring, and what plans it has. It cannot, he said, simply ask voters to choose between Stalin and itself on charisma alone. Charisma and anti-DMK rhetoric were not enough; established parties had spent decades working with the people; leadership demanded accountability, empathy and engagement, not heroic speeches.

The Wednesday note opens with the congratulations and then, in a single moving paragraph, gives the reasoning for the U-turn. “I wholeheartedly congratulate Mr Vijay, who, in the very first election he contested, garnered immense public support and won in 108 constituencies, as someone from the film world. The joy I feel in your victory is nothing but the wind of freedom blowing across Tamil Nadu. Thank you for freeing the people, and me, from the clutches of those parties we’ve suffered under for so many years, allowing us to breathe easy. That was our aim all along, and that’s the truth.” He closes with a line that names the change in his own posture directly: “I believe your governance will fulfil the people’s wishes and create the necessities for future generations. I regret the criticisms I made against you before the election.”

The pair of posts is the kind of public on-the-record reversal Tamil cinema rarely produces in either direction. Cheran and Vijay have never collaborated; in a 2020 interview, Cheran had said he turned down a chance to direct Vijay after Autograph because he was committed to Thavamai Thavamirundhu, a decision he had filed under regrets. The new post does not name that history, but the registration of regret is the second time the word has surfaced in a Cheran answer about Vijay. The TVK swearing-in is on Thursday at Nehru Indoor Stadium.