In September 2005, Tamil superstar Captain Vijayakant launched his party DMDK with much fanfare from the temple town of Madurai. Thirteen years later, on 21 February, another megastar Kamal Haasan launched his party ‘Makkal Needhi Maiam’ from the same city.

Captain Vijayakant, who offered to provide an alternate to the two main Dravidian parties when their iconic leaders J. Jayalalitha (AIADMK) and M.Karunanidhi (DMK) were not only active but also politically stable, succeeded to a certain extent by getting an eight per cent vote share in the 2006 Assembly polls and over 10 per cent in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, becoming the main opposition party. But later when he decided to go at it alone, he only ended up as a spoiler and today his party is withering away.

The untimely death of AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalitha has opened up space for movie stars like Kamal Haasan and Rajnikanth who are eyeing the vacuum. The fact that Karunanidhi has been ailing for the past year and the change of guard in the DMK has also emboldened them to make their bid. While Rajinikanth has declared his intention to launch his own political outfit, Kamal Haasan launched Makkal Needhi Maiam this week.

The question is whether Tamil Nadu is ready for another movie star. The state is passing through a peculiar phase facing a leadership crisis showing a splintered polity. The ruling AIADMK has split into three factions – one led by chief minister E. Palaniswamy, the second by his deputy chief minister and former chief minister O.

Pannerselvam and the third by Sasikala’s nephew, TTV Dinakaran who won the R.K. Nagar seat held by Jayalalitha in Chennai. Similarly, the DMK too has three factions – one led by the DMK working president and Karunanidhi’s second son, Stalin, the second by his daughter Kanimozhi and the third by the DMK old guard like Anbazhagan.

The smaller parties like PMK, MDMK, DMDK and others besides the two national parties – the Congress and the BJP – are all minor players in the state and are watching the entry of new players like Kamal Haasan and Rajinikant. While the former might align with the DMK, the latter is promoted by the BJP.

So what is Kamal’s game? He is not in the same class as the other two movie star chief ministers – MGR and Jayalalithaa who had ruled earlier or even Rajnikant who has a mass appeal. He is a political novice.

Kamal Haasan has to overcome many challenges before he succeeds. No doubt the superstar has launched the party with fanfare but he does not have much time before the next Lok Sabha polls or the next Assembly elections. How will he find workers and party offices? His fan associations are not enough for this purpose.

Secondly who are in his core group? So far no big names have emerged and for politics you need an organisation and good people to attract votes. Politicians quite often gravitate to new parties.

Thirdly, running a party is a costly affair and fighting elections will be much more challenging. Will he be able to find candidates to contest polls? How will he finance them? In the case of Rajnikant, the BJP is ready to finance him.

Fourthly, the elections have become a game of arithmetic. Without alliances no party can win in a splintered polity, which is what Tamil Nadu is today. Who will come forward to embrace his party? The DMK and the Left parties might.

But before that he has to establish his party, which is a very big challenge. Perhaps he is looking at the success of the Aam Aadmi Party, which had formed the government in Delhi in so short a time.

Speaking at Kamal Haasan’s party launch, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, “People of Delhi rejected both BJP and Congress and gave us 67 seats, the kind of response I am seeing here I am sure people of Tamil Nadu will break the record of people of Delhi.” But Tamil Nadu is not Delhi.

Fifthly, while he favoured last month unity among six Southern states under the “Dravidian” tag to leverage ties with the Centre claiming “It (Dravidian) is our identity, and it will give the southern states a leverage with the Centre,” his newly launched party does not have the Dravidian tag.

“Not just Tamilians are Dravidians. Even CMs of all other Southern States (AP, Telangana, Kerala and Karnataka) were Dravidians,” he claims. Will this Dravidian card work when there are other Dravidian parties that have a long history?

Above all, elections have become more and more based on caste and religion. Kamal Haasan is a Brahmin and has no caste backing.

This will be a handicap. Moreover, he has already declared that he is not for freebie culture.

His poll plank will be mainly corruption and change. The question is Tamil Nadu is considered a most corrupt state and how can one man root out corruption by just his declaration to end it?

However, politics is unpredictable and if Kamal Haasan moves shrewdly and manages to find finances, workers and credible allies, Dame Luck may favour him. It is too early to predict that his party will not take off.