Chennai: Through the first song of his upcoming film Leo, ‘Naa Ready’ (I am ready), actor Vijay is sending across a clear message on his impending entry into politics, about which has been mulling over for a long time but dilly dallying with it.
Now, it looks that he has taken a call, perhaps seeing an opportunity to contest the 2026 Assembly polls, and the indications were abound on Saturday when he organized a meeting to honour students who had scored the first three marks in the tenth and twelfth standard public examinations.
That his is a long-term plan became evident from his calling the students as future voters and telling them about the cash-for-vote menace that is reportedly prevalent in Indian politics. He drew up a quick calculation on how much a candidate will be shelling out at least Rs 1000 a voter and suggested that it led to corruption.
While exhorting students to read extensively, he particularly named three political icons whom they should be reading about: B R Ambedkar, Periyar E V Ramasamy and K Kamaraj. That goes without saying that the actor has his eyes on mobilizing people on various fronts before contesting elections.
Though Vijay did not deliver a pompous speech typical of politicians while honouring student achievers, his motive became clear when he wanted the statues of Ambedkar to be garlanded and World Hunger Day to be observed through mass feeding.
Vijay’s films in the past had had several political connotations like GST coming under attack in Mersel, freebies criticized in Sarkar and Thalaiva having a punch line: ‘Time to Lead,’ which had to be removed for enabling the film to come out. Now, he’s 'ready.'
