Tamil Nadu has not merely elected a new chief minister. It has broken a political structure that appeared immovable for nearly six decades. The swearing-in of film star C. Joseph Vijay as chief minister marks the first time since 1967 that power in the state has shifted outside the DMK-AIADMK axis. That matters far beyond celebrity politics. Actor-politicians are not new to Tamil Nadu. What is new is the sharp drop of public confidence in both pillars of the Dravidian establishment at the same moment.

For years, Tamil Nadu politics operated like a closed system. One Dravidian party weakened, the other inherited power. Voters could punish governments, but not the political architecture itself. This election changed that pattern. Mr Vijay did not rise because Tamil Nadu suddenly abandoned Dravidian identity. He rose because millions of voters concluded that the existing custodians of that identity had exhausted themselves. The DMK suffered from incumbency, fatigue, and the burden of dynastic continuity. The AIADMK, after Jayalalithaa’s death, increasingly looked like a party surviving on memory rather than direction. Into that vacuum stepped a younger figure with mass........

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