At a condolence meet for former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa in December, the Tamil actor Rajinikanth said he was one of the main reasons for her party’s defeat in the 1996 assembly election and that really hurt her.In what is till today the most significant episode in Rajinikanth’s tenuous history with electoral politics, he said before the election, “Even God save cannot Tamil Nadu if Jayalalithaa is voted back to power.” He was backing a coalition of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam ( DMK ) and the newly formed breakaway Congress party, the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC).Jayalalithaa had become chief minister for the first time in 1991, and five years later, was battling strong antiincumbency sentiments, largely due to a string of corruption allegations against her government, best exemplified by her foster son’s obscenely ostentatious wedding in 1995. Before the 1996 election, Rajinikanth met then-prime minister Narasimha Rao , who asked him to enter politics. But Rajinikanth refused.The writing was on the wall for Jayalalithaa and her party, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam ( AIADMK ), and Rajinikanth’s statement certainly gave an edge to her opponents. But to say it was crucial to Jayalalithaa’s defeat would be overstating Rajinikanth’s influence on the electorate. His fans and the media have in the past been guilty of just that. Now, with the 66-year-old actor once again giving strong indications about venturing into politics — he has a habit of making cryptic remarks on the subject — there is a tendency among many to start wondering if he can change the political landscape of the state and if he can indeed become chief minister.During a five-day meeting with his fans in Chennai earlier this month, Rajinikanth said, “My life is in God’s hands. He wants me to be an actor today, but tomorrow if he wants me to be someone else, I’ll accept that too.” He told his fans that he will need them when it’s time for “war”. All the same, he was careful not to offend any political leaders, saying Tamil Nadu has capable politicians like MK Stalin, DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi’s son and the party’s working president, and former Union minister Anbumani Ramadoss of the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK).“But the system is rotten. We need to change that,” he said, not bothering to explain what exactly he meant. Immediately, most leaders across the political spectrum welcomed him to politics, and Amit Shah, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been struggling for a long time to get a foothold in Tamil Nadu, said the party is open to accepting him if he so wishes. There were even reports that Rajinikanth would meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi this week.(They met in Chennai during the 2014 election campaign but Rajinikanth did not endorse the BJP.) Rajinikanth’s speech comes at a time when there is a lot of uncertainty in Tamil Nadu politics, caused by the death of Jayalalithaa in December 2016 and Karunanidhi’s poor health. Jayalalithaa’s demise led to a split in the AIADMK, after her close aide VK Sasikala set eyes on the chief ministerial post. O Panneerselvam , the then interim CM, broke away from the party with a few MLAs, while the majority remained with Sasikala, who was jailed in a disproportionate assets case. Edappadi K Palaniswami was made chief minister. Now, Sasikala and her nephew, TTV Dhinakaran, who was running the party in her absence, have both been sidelined in the context of the latter’s arrest after he was accused of trying to bribe the Election Commission (EC) to get the party’s “two leaves” symbol. The EC had denied both factions’ claim over the symbol in the by-election to the constituency represented by Jayalalithaa.Dhinakaran was his faction’s contestant in the election which was cancelled by the EC, citing Dhinakaran and his associates’ attempts to bribe voters. Both factions have been going back and forth on talks for an impending merger. The DMK is also entering a new phase of its existence, with Stalin taking control of the party, but he still does not quite measure up to his father in charisma or political acumen. The BJP sees the present scenario as its best chance to make an impact in the state, which in the 2014 general election defied the BJP surge.(The BJP alliance won just two of the 39 seats, with the AIADMK winning the rest). In the 2016 assembly election, the BJP failed to win a single seat. There have also been talks of an alliance between the Panneerselvam camp and the BJP; Panneerselvam recently met Modi in the capital.The BJP, which lacks popular state leaders, is hoping to ride on the goodwill of someone like Rajinikanth. “If an actor of Rajinikanth’s popularity has an alliance with a party with a credible leadership like the BJP come together, it will be beneficial to both,” says H Raja, national secretary of the BJP.While he has not made it clear if he will join the BJP or float his own outfit, many believe it could be the latter. “His fan base is religion-neutral. His minority fans might be disappointed if he joins the BJP,” says a member of the legislative assembly (MLA) from the Panneerselvam faction of the AIADMK. P Sridhar, who heads a Rajinikanth fan club in Chennai, concurs:“His identity and individuality can be retained only by starting his own party.” Rajinikanth, one of India’s biggest film stars, is often addressed with the prefix ‘Superstar’, which is sometimes used in isolation. Born Shivaji Rao Gaekwad in Karnataka, Rajinikanth made his film debut in 1975 and reached the peak of his stardom in the 1990s with films like Baasha, Muthu and Padaiyappa. Rajinikanth has over the past two decades often played the role of a morally upright and socially conscious underdog, with references to his future in politicsWhile some argue that he is no longer the star he once was, his 2016 release, Kabali, where he played a Dalit gangster fighting for the cause of Tamils in Malaysia, showed he can still draw crowds like no other actor of his generation. Some Tamil nationalist groups have opposed his foray into politics because he is not a Tamilian but Rajinikanth has dismissed that charge saying he lived almost twice as long in Tamil Nadu as he has in Karnataka, and in 2002, he observed a public fast demanding Karnataka release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.A big question that needs to be asked is whether Rajinikanth’s fans, who may be supporters of the DMK or the AIADMK or any other party, will abandon their political affiliation to vote for him in an election. Sridhar says even if the DMK’s and AIADMK’s vote banks remain intact, there is a sizeable chunk of neutral voters who might go with Rajinikanth. The two parties polled nearly three quarters of the total votes in the 2016 assembly election.Rajinikanth’s support to an alliance has not always meant victory for it as it did in 1996. In the 1998 general election, he again extended support to the the DMK-TMC combine, but they won just eight seats. Similarly in the 2004 parliamentary election, he said he would support the BJP, but the BJP and its ally, the AIADMK, did not bag a single seat. Vaasanthi, a veteran journalist, says Rajinikanth is tempted to enter politics every now and then because of his fans. “He is a confused man and he never seemed to have any ideology.” She makes light of comparisons between him and MG Ramachandran , a bigger star in his time than Rajinikanth who made the seamless shift to politics. A Congress member who joined the DMK in 1953, he quit the DMK in 1972 over his differences with Karunanidhi and formed the AIADMK. The party coasted to power in 1977 and he remained CM till his death ten years later.“MGR was astonishingly popular. He was a DMK member and propagated its ideology through his films. Women were his biggest supporters but they were never enamoured of Rajinikanth,” says Vaasanthi. Film historian S Theodore Bhaskaran says MGR’s fan base was homogenous thanks to his ideology. “Rajinikanth has a motley collection of fans and nothing binds them politically.” S Thirunavukkarasar, who heads the Congress in Tamil Nadu, believes Rajinikanth cannot depend on just his fans and the support of others is also important.According to Anbumani Ramadoss, a member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha, when MGR and his protege Jayalalithaa, also a wellknown actor, joined politics, voters were ignorant and illiterate. “Now none of the youngsters relate to actors.” He also asks what Rajinikanth’s plans for employment generation and industrial development in the state are and how he intends to tackle distress in agriculture. Ramadoss has been pitching his party as an alternative to the DMK and AIADMK. TKS Elangovan, the DMK’s spokesperson, says the party will decide whether to join hands with him depending on his stand on various issues. He adds that if he goes it alone, given the power struggle in the AIADMK, the DMK’s opposition will be further divided.Jayalalithaa was only the second and last actor to make it big in Tamil Nadu politics. Others like Sivaji Ganesan and R Sarathkumar have tried and failed, and Vijayakanth, who showed promise in the early years of his party, has now been reduced to an afterthought. So it is certainly no walk in the park for Rajinikanth, especially given the rumours that he is not in the best of health and the time he will have to devote his films (his 2.0, a sequel to Endhiran, is in production, and that will be followed by Kaala Karikalan). That said, regardless of his success in the electoral arena, he will certainly bring some pizzazz to Tamil Nadu politics.