Vijay visits Stalin at his Chennai home, day after oath

Vijay visited outgoing chief minister M K Stalin at his Chennai residence on Monday afternoon, the protocol call a new CM pays on his predecessor on the first full working day after taking office. They exchanged silk shawls and a bouquet, with Udhayanidhi Stalin in the room and photographers given access for the handshake the Stalin office released to the press.

The call came after Vijay’s first morning at the assembly, where pro-tem speaker M V Karuppaiah ran the 17th Assembly’s inaugural session and the new cabinet was administered the oath alongside the rest of the house. The Stalin office framed the visit that followed as a straight courtesy call. The photographs from the residence read warm. Handshakes, folded palms, guests seated under the late Karunanidhi’s portrait, and a back-and-forth visibly shorter on tension than on protocol.

The civility was, in part, a thank-you. Stalin’s DMK had publicly congratulated TVK after the May 4 results, and Stalin himself is reported to have nudged the smaller alliance partners (Congress, CPI, CPI(M), VCK and IUML) into backing Vijay’s government-formation claim, so the state did not slip into a constitutional standoff. Without that DMK signal of tolerance, the alliance arithmetic that took TVK over the floor threshold would not have lined up as quickly. Stalin’s only sharp public note in the days since was an advisory delivered at his post-result presser: don’t claim the treasury is empty.

The colour of the shawls was its own quiet statement. Stalin draped Vijay in a yellow silk weave, the colour TVK has built its visual identity around; Vijay returned a pink-and-gold weave on Stalin. Monday’s diary is not done. Vaiko is on Vijay’s 3.30 pm slot, VCK’s Thol Thirumavalavan is scheduled for Tuesday at Ambedkar Ground in Ashok Nagar, and the floor test set by the Governor’s invitation letter lands on May 13.