Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) President Kamal Haasan addresses during an election campaign rally.
Credit: PTI Photo
Chennai: In a boost to the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, actor Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) on Saturday formally joined the Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) in Tamil Nadu. Though MNM won’t contest the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the fledgling party will get a Rajya Sabha berth from the DMK in 2025, setting the stage for Kamal Haasan’s entry into the Upper House of Parliament.
As part of the agreement reached between the DMK and MNM, Kamal Haasan will campaign extensively for the SPA across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In return, the MNM will get a Rajya Sabha seat in 2025 when six members will retire, and elections will be held to fill the vacancies.
“I will not contest the 2024 polls, and the same goes for my party. We will extend all necessary cooperation to the alliance. This is not for any position, but for the country. That’s why we have extended our hands to (the DMK alliance),” the actor-politician said, after meeting DMK President and Chief Minister M K Stalin. Haasan and CM Stalin finalised the deal at the DMK headquarters Anna Arivalayam here.
Kamal Haasan’s announcement is a boost to the SPA led by DMK which won the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2021 assembly polls defeating the AIADMK-BJP combine in both elections. The foundation for Kamal’s entry into the alliance was laid in December 2022 when the actor joined Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in New Delhi.
The DMK offered one Lok Sabha seat or one Rajya Sabha seat for Kamal Haasan’s party, which chose the latter. If MNM had chosen the Lok Sabha formula, the party would have got Coimbatore constituency from where the BJP is reportedly pushing its state unit chief K Annamalai to contest.
Kamal Haasan, who made his political debut in 2018 by projecting himself as a change agent, decided to join the DMK alliance on the prodding from the Congress. The actor-politician had always evinced interest in working with the Congress since 2018 but the latter’s political compulsions did not allow any such arrangement.
Kamal, in fact, was interested in an alliance with Congress for the 2021 TN assembly polls but the party was an integral part of the DMK combine and couldn’t work with him.
After the polls, Kamal Haasan suffered a series of setbacks when all his trusted lieutenants including ex-bureaucrat Santhosh Babu, R Mahendran, and C K Kumaravel, quit the party, blaming him for the defeat. The MNM didn’t do well in the civic polls as well, and Kamal Haasan has not been seen in any major public protest since then.