Chennai: Actor-turned-politician and Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) founder Kamal Haasan said Wednesday that talks with the INDIA bloc were progressing in Tamil Nadu but there had been no decision on joining the opposition coalition yet.
Addressing workers on the MNM’s seventh anniversary celebrations, Haasan said they would join hands with anyone doing selfless work. “But we will not support anyone indulging in local feudal politics,” he added.
The actor, who has so far kept away from any party, has recently been cosying up to Tamil Nadu’ ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which is a part of the INDIA grouping.
In the 2023 Erode bypolls, Haasan campaigned for the DMK-Congress coalition candidate, E.V.K.S Elangovan, who was a former Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president.
Haasan also called Chief Minister M.K. Stalin “a friend” during the inauguration of a photo exhibition, which was held last year as part of the DMK leader’s birthday celebrations in Chennai.
The INDIA bloc, however, has had a rocky few months with the Trinamool Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party often coming out against the Congress. The Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) left the alliance in January to join hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
‘Who is a full-time politician?’
At the anniversary event on Wednesday, Haasan also slammed critics for attributing his party’s “poor” performance to him not being “a full-time politician”.
“They say I am not a full-time politician. But who is one? Nobody,” Hassan told the party workers
The actor added he had used his own money to run the party and its expenses.
“I don’t think I failed in the Coimbatore constituency. But 90,000 people didn’t come out to vote that day. The real issue is that. We should go ask them why they didn’t vote,” Haasan said, referring to his 2021 loss from there.
Haasan said he didn’t join politics because he was angry, but to see the situation on the ground.
The actor had contested the Tamil Nadu assembly elections from Coimbatore South after three years, but lost to BJP’s Vanathi Srinivasan by a thin margin of 1,540 votes.
Despite his popularity, the party has not been electorally successful and its vote share also went down in the 2021 Assembly polls – to 2.62 percent from 3.72 percent in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
“The party’s political journey has just begun and it will continue,” Haasan asserted Wednesday.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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