Inside Track: Southern Star’s Pawar Politics

Vijay’s relationships across the spectrum are fast earning him the tag of the Sharad Pawar of the South. His only political foe is Udhayanidhi Stalin, and Vijay is turning the heat on Red Giant Movies, Stalin’s huge film distribution and production house.

Though new to politics, Vijay is proving to be a savvy player and maintains a good working relationship with all sides. He may be a member of the INDIA bloc in Tamil Nadu, but retains his independence nationally. (File)

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5 min readNov 15, 2026 07:00 AM IST First published on: Nov 15, 2026 at 07:00 AM IST

The bonding of three powerful southern politicians at the lavish pre-wedding ceremony of Shreya, niece of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Reddy, in Chennai was significant. All three satraps head influential regional parties: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Joseph Vijay is the founder-president of the TVK;  in Andhra, Jagan Reddy is supreme in the YSR Congress; in Telangana, KT Rama Rao controls the BRS — renamed from TRS, which was launched by his father. Though new to politics, Vijay is proving to be a savvy player and maintains a good working relationship with all sides. He may be a member of the INDIA bloc in Tamil Nadu, but retains his independence nationally. After hosting a lunch for Rahul Gandhi one  afternoon, he welcomed Narendra Modi at the Chennai airport the very next day and travelled with the PM to inaugurate the second phase of Chennai’s metro. He assured Modi of his state government’s cooperation.  The TN CM has had cordial meetings with both Amit Shah and Nirmala Sitharaman. Vijay’s relationships across the spectrum are fast earning him the tag of the Sharad Pawar of the South. His only political foe is Udhayanidhi Stalin, and Vijay is turning the heat on Red Giant Movies, Stalin’s huge film distribution and production house. Even upcoming releases of superstars like Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan are held up because they are tied to Red Giant.

No Warts and Some Whitewash

Autobiographies are a bit like commissioned portraits; there is a human tendency to omit the warts and whitewash the dark corners. Sonia Gandhi’s autobiography, Belonging, which is selling faster than hotcakes, with Blinkit a bigger distributor than most bookshops, falls  in this category. Nevertheless, it is an invaluable and fascinating insider’s account of Indian history. The author is surprisingly candid about the short fuse of the Gandhis — Rajiv tearing up a May Ball invitation card and storming out because Sonia was not ready on time, or Indira making her staff stand in a corner if they displeased her. She is open about her father-in-law Feroze’s womanising, which Indira Gandhi was apparently reconciled to, but omits her own father’s fascist background. There is little or no mention of several who were once intimate with the family, such as Amitabh Bachchan or Ottavio Quattrocchi. Some of Sonia’s recollections of historical events, giving the Congress first family a clean chit, are questionable. For instance, the claim that then Army chief General AS Vaidya prevaricated for five days, even though Rajiv Gandhi had ordered the Army to be called against the anti-Sikh armed mobs the night of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Her dislike of sister-in-law Maneka Gandhi, who left her in-laws’ home while still in her twenties, is visceral. Sonia has preserved a letter written by Indira criticising Maneka, even though the letter was never actually sent.

Punjab Puzzle: Insiders vs Outsiders

The outcome of the three-way Punjab assembly elections due next year is a psephologist’s nightmare, with the Panthic vote share adding to the unpredictability. AAP had a head start but is fighting both anti-incumbency and the charge that its election campaign is being handled by outsiders from Delhi, notably Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain. The Delhi team has even appropriated two Punjab ministerial bungalows. To counter the outsider image, AAP has focused its election strategy solely around the endearing but erratic CM Bhagwant Mann. Meanwhile, Amit Shah’s ambitious calculation that he could re-enact another West Bengal upset in Punjab got a  reality check last month after his Jalandhar rally failed to attract crowds. The BJP’s wholesale appropriation of deadwood leaders from Congress and AAP has not helped its prospects; rather, it has made loyalists and its cadres resentful. Significantly, Prime Minister Modi recently appointed trusted aide CR Patil as informal head of the Punjab BJP campaign, and Patil has held  several meetings with the BJP’s discarded ally, the Akali Dal. The state Congress, riven with fractiousness and clashing ambitions, has achieved some measure of stability, thanks to seasoned state-in-charge Sachin Pilot appointing former hockey chief and universally liked Pargat Singh to head the Punjab unit. Rahul Gandhi’s harsh remark at a recent Sangrur rally that he could smell the liquor on Mann’s breath after 11 am in Parliament may rebound on the Congress.

Unwelcome Astrologer

An elderly astrologer from Kanpur, staying at UP Bhavan in Delhi last month, created a buzz among  politicians at the state guest house by broadcasting his political prophecy far and wide. His theory is that Saturn would be entering Pisces next year, usually a time of confrontation and testing, in what would be comparable to the periods of instability the country witnessed between 1966 and 1969 and between 1996 and 1999. A hapless central minister whom the astrologer happened to call on has been quick to distance himself from the soothsayer.