Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister and founder of the Jana Sena Party Pawan Kalyan made an important comment on Vijay’s quick success in the recent Tamil Nadu assembly elections. Speaking at a public function on Monday, Kalyan joked that he was jealous of Vijay’s unexpected rise in politics. He cited that Vijay achieved this success in a very short time while Kalyan had to struggle for 15 years to establish himself in politics.
The Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh said that he was really jealous of the joy with which Vijay won using cutouts and holograms. On the contrary, Kalyan said he has been roaming the streets for the past 15 years. He said running a political party meant bringing together millions of people and lamented that it was easy to imagine how difficult it was to run a party when one’s own family members often disagreed.
Both Vijay and Pawan Kalyan originally entered politics from the acting industry and both have made significant strides in South Indian politics. Vijay formed his own political party, TVK, in 2024 and won 108 seats in the 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, ending decades of dominance by the DMK and AIADMK. Pawan Kalyan, who founded the Jana Sena Party in 2014, won only one seat in the 2019 Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections and lost the two seats he contested. Kalyan subsequently consolidated its organizational base and won all of the 21 seats in the 2024 elections in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Telugu Desam Party. Kalyan won from Pithapuram seat by a margin of 70,000 votes. While Pawan Kalyan currently serves as the Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Vijay continues to be a strong opposition and decisive force in the politics of the state through his party in Tamil Nadu.