Vijay’s swansong movie Jana Nayagan, locked by Censor Board, leaked online ahead of TN elections

Rattling the film industry and setting off alarm bells in poll-bound Tamil Nadu, actor and Tamilga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) president Vijay’s swansong movie, held up by the Censor Board for months together, has been leaked online.

This leak has come at a time when the TVK is making its electoral debut, projecting Vijay as the Chief Ministerial face in this assembly polls. When he launched the TVK in February 2024, he stayed away from the parliamentary elections, preferring to enter the fray in 2026. Then, he had announced that ‘Jananayagan’ would be his last venture in films.

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According to some reports, the full HD print of the movie had been leaked, some maintain that only a 5-minute clip was released by piracy sites. The movie’s director H Vinoth has urged the public not to download it from such sites and said that the film crew and the production house are taking steps to address the issue. South Indian movie mogul Chiranjeevi, actors Siva Karthikeyan and Sibi Sathyaraj and others from the film industry have expressed shock at the leak.

Originally scheduled for release on January nine ahead of the Pongal festival and expected to boost the TVK ahead of the elections, it remains caught with the Censor Board. When the CBFC initially rescinded its decision to issue the film certification, the Congress had slammed the BJP and Prime Minister Modi of throttling creative freedom. Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi even termed it as an assault on Tamil culture.

When the production house approached the High Court, a single judge bench directed the CBFC to issue the film certificate, but with a Division Bench overturning it, the makers of the movie withdrew the case and acceded to the CFBC re-examining it. With the re-examination over, issuance of certification remains in a limbo. Now, the leak has created a renewed interest among fans and TVK supporters who are more focussed on the election as Vijay too is shouldering the party’s campaign.

The TVK is ploughing a lonely furrow, since Vijay’s expectation of an alliance with the Congress didn’t materialise as the national party had remained with the DMK, heading the INDIA block in Tamil Nadu. No other party had come forward to join hands despite Vijay’s declaration of sharing power on getting the mandate.