Congress leader B. Manickam Tagore has predicted that Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) chief C. Joseph Vijay will back Rahul Gandhi as the INDIA opposition bloc’s candidate for prime minister in the 2029 parliamentary election. Tagore, who heads the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, made the prediction in an interview with The Hindu; it is his expectation, not an endorsement announced by Vijay.
Asked about TVK figures who had described Vijay as a future prime minister, Tagore said those remarks reflected personal wishes and were no longer being made. He said Vijay would announce the party’s position when the election approached. Tagore added that the Tamil Nadu Congress would campaign with Gandhi as its projected candidate and said he was confident TVK would support him.
Tagore also dismissed the prospect that the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which left the INDIA bloc after Congress joined the TVK-led ministry following the state assembly election, could succeed by building a separate national third front. He pointed to the DMK’s 2014 election performance when it contested alone and forecast a similar result. These were political arguments made by Tagore, rather than a settled electoral outcome.
He said the DMK’s exit had not weakened the opposition nationally, asserting that the bloc’s 23 MPs remained united during the parliamentary session. Tagore further argued that the BJP was promoting talk of third fronts to divide opposition votes, while describing the emergence of a viable third front as unlikely.
On TVK’s relationship with the BJP, Tagore said the younger party shared the Congress’s position on issues such as delimitation. He cited the Secular Social Justice Victory Alliance in Tamil Nadu as the forum through which parties would decide a collective response when the BJP acted against the state. He defended TVK’s limited public comment on national questions by saying parties had different political styles and did not need to issue statements every day.