The Congress’s decision to back the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) and its chief Vijay after the Tamil Nadu Assembly polls threw up a fractured mandate, has not come as a surprise to many within the party. The reason: the long-standing equation between the TVK chief and the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, that dates back nearly 17 years, when the latter was relatively new to politics and Vijay was on the cusp of superstardom in Tamil films. Long before Vijay formally entered politics and launched the TVK in 2024, Congress leaders had already viewed him as ideologically aligned with the party, with early conversations between the actor and Rahul Gandhi in 2009 fuelling speculation about a possible political partnership. Congress leaders recall a meeting Vijay had with Gandhi in August 2009, months after the Congress returned to power in the Lok Sabha elections with an improved mandate from 2004.…