150 days in, the 'Vettri' gloss is fading: experts say TVK government is still learning to govern

One hundred and fifty days after C. Joseph Vijay took oath as Tamil Nadu's chief minister on May 10, the first serious assessments of his government are in, and they carry an uncomfortable message for the TVK leadership: the actor has learned how to brand a government, but not yet how to run one. The welfare blitz is undeniable. Within hours of assuming office, Vijay announced 200 units of free electricity for domestic consumers. Within 48 hours, his government ordered 717 TASMAC liquor outlets shut near temples, schools and bus stands. Since then it has expanded the Perunthalaivar Kamarajar breakfast scheme to Classes VI to VIII, put biriyani on the midday meal menu, launched the Thaimaman Thanga Mothiram scheme giving a one-gram 22-carat gold ring to newborns in government hospitals, and rolled out Vettri Payanam, free bus travel for women and transgender persons across 12,692 buses. Look closer, though: much of it is old wine in new bottles. Vettri Payanam expands and renames the previous DMK government's free-bus scheme; the breakfast programme builds on existing architecture. "Vijay is only continuing the DMK and AIADMK model of welfare schemes, but he is doing it with novelty," Chennai-based analyst Ravindran Duraisamy told India Today Digital. Senior journalist TR Jawahar put the expectation problem sharply: people did not vote for TVK merely as a change of government; they expected "a change in the style of governance itself". It is on governance mechanics that the stumbles have piled up. On September 21 the government exempted the Public (Law and Order) Department from the RTI Act, classifying it as an intelligence organisation; six days later it revoked the order after fierce backlash, including from its own allies, the Congress and the VCK. The government has also withdrawn a directive on student participation in political protests and cancelled an appointment to the Chief Minister's Office. Jawahar cited the RTI episode as proof that the government "needs to understand the mechanics of running a state", even as he credited the speed of the reversal as responsiveness to criticism. Law and order, the weapon Vijay wielded against the previous DMK administration during the campaign, is now his own burden. Duraisamy called it "the biggest test for the Vijay government". Opposition leader M.K. Stalin has hammered the dispensation over recurring power cuts, mocking that even TVK ministers faced outages at public events in Madurai and Thanjavur: if this is the plight of ministers, he asked, what of ordinary people? The "reels regime" jibe, that Vijay records reels instead of reviewing files, has stuck. The team itself is a vulnerability. Many TVK ministers and MLAs are political newcomers; the government has seven first-time ministers, two of them under 30. "They have witnessed an overnight success which has become difficult for them to bear," Duraisamy said. "That is why the TVK ministers are seen speaking in arrogance and making controversial statements at times." Jawahar's summary was measured: "an energetic beginning rather than a finished report card." With the Madurantakam and Dharapuram bypolls voting today, the first electoral verdict on the movement's novelty is already being written.