Dear Chief Minister-elect C. Joseph Vijay:

Greetings and the warmest felicitations on your stellar victory.

May you have a resoundingly successful innings as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

I am a voter in your – and my – State but I was not among the nearly 35% of those who voted for you on the23rd of April. I was among the 65 % who did not vote for you.

And I was going along with the received wisdom that said ‘Vijay is attracting yongsters but that will not get him seats…Those will go where they have traditionally gone…’

So, as the figures tumbled out on 4 May, I was duly startled. Concurrently with being startled came the thought : He is new, which means he is inexperienced but which also means he is fresh, un-co-opted by the corrupt crony, the cunning conman.

But I asked myself if you were being told some truths, some home truths, by someone who has no axe to grind. I was not sure you were.

And so, esteemed Chief Minister-elect just as I took the liberty to place some thoughts before the just-elected Mu Ka Stalin five years ago, I take the liberty to do the same before you:

1. You have won the vote ; you are yet to win the all-important floor-test in the House. It is important that you make the protecting of India’s federal and secular fabric your priority number one. Let the State under you stand for the mariadai of the Constitution’s basic structure. Let no panic about saving your chair make you compromise on that.

2. What, it may be asked of you, is your ideology? Let that not faze you. Tell them : ‘My ideology is “No ideology” ’. And add: “It is following my manasaatchi’ (the witnessing conscience).

3. Enter the House as Vijay in every sense of the term but remember that triumphalism does not make for good attire, studiousness does. Mu Ka Stalin, whom you are succeeding, represents a venerable thinking tradition of a whole community’s self-respect, which EVR Periyar bequeathed and Perarignar Anna nurtured. This is of a movement’s ardent effort to bring about equality of opportunity in a society riven by prejudices, patriarchy and pride. His statement of departure issued as he was losing and you were winning, is statesmanlike. You have what he does not: a fresh slate. He has what you do not: an experienced stylus to write with. He is your predecessor, not your predator. You are his successor, not his supplanter. Despite your rejection of much in his politics and his government, remember that in the core of federal selfhood an secular egality, you are both on the same page. Hearken to him on that page. And let Udhayanidhi Stalin’s presence in the House be for you a great duet, not a grim duel. The two of you, young and charismatic, can be Nadal facing Federer — a swinging skills per rules of the sport.

4. Only three of your 108 MLAs have been Legislators before. The rest could learn from those three and from seniors facing them , including in what not to do! There are but five Congress MLAs in the new House. Remember, please, that they are of the party that the karmayogi Perunthalaivar Kamaraj led.

5. A practical word : Please treat officers in the Secretariat as your colleagues not your subordinates. They are often in the mistaken impression that sycophancy is service. Rid them of that mistaken impression by telling them what the great Sardar Patel, as Home Minister did, as did Rajaji in all the positions he held — tell them to offer without fear their frank view, their objective advice.

6. Lastly, please, as head of the Government of Tamil Nadu, as within the State sustain good, clean, efficient governance and foster economic progress, with environmental protection as a primary priority, beyond the State, become a beacon for a hate-free, fear-free and just India. If I may end on a personal note. It is the first time that in you, a Christian heads the government of this State. Celebrate that gift of destiny as God’s intervention for Tamil Nadu’s great secular credentials. Let no one tell you to mute down or understate that legacy. Valluvar would not want you to.

I wish you more than success , more than vettri, Vijay. I wish you - fulfilment, Chief Minister. God speed.

Your fellow citizen,

Gopalkrishna Gandhi