With the Tamil Nadu Assembly election less than two weeks away, actor-politician Kamal Haasan is optimistic about his chances and confident that he and his fledgling party, the Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), will be given an opportunity to serve the public of the southern state.
when asked if he would accept being an opposition MLA instead, he said, “Our purpose is not the grade from the media or from other politicians… our aim is to dislodge the corrupt conglomerates. I am absolutely okay. I will sleep well… but they (ruling party MLAs) won’t.”
“Whether we are in power or in the opposition, this (the election) is a means to an end. It is to put an end to already obsolete parties (another swipe at the AIADMK and DMK),” he said.
More Statements By Kamal:
Kamal used the back-and-forth between the AIADMK and the DMK to highlight what he believes is the current state of Tamil Nadu politics, claiming that they are too busy screaming corruption accusations at each other to actually prove the charges wrong.
This will not be Kamal’s first election; the MNM ran in the Lok Sabha election in 2019. However, the outcomes were disappointing.
“We were a nascent party for the Lok Sabha election. Also, it was between Prime Minister Modi and the Congress… that was how most people were looking at the election. We were (minor) players. Now, in Tamil Nadu, we are actual fighters for the cause… we are an alternative,” he explained.
Kamal also dismissed rivals’ claims that his decision to run from Coimbatore rather than Chennai would backfire because of the BJP’s ‘outsider’ tag. He plans to run from Coimbatore (South), a stronghold of the ruling AIADMK and, by extension, the BJP.
“All constituencies are open to contest from. I believe all are mine (his party’s) because our candidates are everywhere. But this is to prove a point… this (Coimbatore) is where communal disharmony is engineered and I want to be a voice against that,” he said.
“Gandhiji was an outsider in Tamil Nadu… but that is not how people see him. The people of Tamil Nadu backed MGR (MG Ramachandran, former Chief Minister) who was a Keralite by birth. This ‘outsider’ trick won’t work. If the people love you, they love you,” Kamal declared.
“The Congress called us, we didn’t call them. We would’ve considered an alliance if they had split from the DMK. Even then, they would not have been the major partner,” he stressed.
