India, May 8 -- On May 4, something genuinely unprecedented happened in Tamil Nadu - a state where cinema often intersects with politics. A two-year-old party, founded by a film actor, built on fan clubs, and dismissed by veteran political observers as a romantic long shot, did not just win. It reshaped the state's political map.

But it did not win by enough that day, until it finally claimed to have hit the majority mark with support from other parties four days later. Yet, there was no immediate invitation from the Governor to form the government.

Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), led by actor-turned-politician C Joseph Vijay, emerged as the single largest party with 108 seats, ending a 59-year stranglehold of the Dravidian duopoly - th...