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MNM to boycott TN panchayat polls: Kamal Haasan

The coming election to the local bodies in Tamil Nadu “is not going to be a wholly representative exercise by the people”.

Chennai: Shaking his friends and foes alike, actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan on Sunday announced that ‘Makkal Needhi Maiyam (MNM)’, the political party he leads, will boycott the impending elections to rural local bodies in Tamil Nadu for which the State Election Commission (SEC) had rolled out a fresh schedule on Saturday.

The coming election to the local bodies in Tamil Nadu “is not going to be a wholly representative exercise by the people” and the advances or gains the MNM could make by participating in these elections is not going to make any big difference, Kamal Haasan said in a statement here.

Stating that the reasons for his contention was not hard to seek, Kamal Haasan said the local bodies polls will only be “sharing the spoils of office” between the parties which are “corrupt and which have money power and influence”, without naming the major Dravidian rivals or their allies.

With the MNM’s political objective is for a “radical change” in the politics of Tamil Nadu, he said his party does not believe that “this goal can be attained in installments” by fighting from the lower tiers of democracy onwards.

“It is because the seeds of MNM’s success are not sown by money power or
political cleverness, but on honesty and wholehearted people’s support,” he
emphasised.

As the local bodies elections are not for ensuring people’s welfare in the larger sense of the term, Kamal, obliquely referring to the two Dravidian majors without naming them - DMK and AIADMK-, said “it should be our resolve that MNM will have no role to play in the political drama scripted by the two parties.”

“This is my wish and my advice to my cadre,” Kamal said, adverting to
how MNM had grown in stature over the last year or so from being the butt of
political sarcasm and ridicule to a party which is converting its adversaries to its admirers. “We will continue to serve the people for the next 50 weeks and our objective is to capture power in Tamil Nadu in 2021 (Assembly polls),” the MNM leader added in setting out the reasons why his party has decided to boycott the Panchayat elections now.

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