Makkal Needhi Maiam founder Kamal Haasan, who is contesting as a candidate in Coimbatore South constituency, has released a video attacking the Union government and the State government for lack of jobs, deterioration of law and order and petrol price rise.
Mr. Haasan said he cannot even get down on the road and protest against these issues like Mahatma Gandhi as the roads are filled with potholes. “After all, aren’t they ‘corrupt’ roads?” he asks.
The video was released a day after he referred to former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s comment made in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll campaign and said, “She asked, ‘Modi ya, Lady ya’. I am asking, ‘Indha Dhaadiya, andha Dhaadiya?’” in a public meeting, roughly translating as “This beard or that?” referring to himself and Mr. Modi.
Mr. Haasan, who is shown standing underneath the Gandhi statue on the Marina Beach, says that Mahatma Gandhi wouldn’t have been happy in India today. “When we think that the Constitution written by Ambedkar would save us, there is a person from above telling us what to eat, what language we must speak and what to think. He is telling us how to love our country,” he says. “Look, just because your State is in the North, do not think that you are the high command. Look from here, we are the main door to India. If we think that one person will speak with this anger in New Delhi, he is crossing his arms in front of them,” he says before asking people to vote for MNM’s symbol, ‘Torch Light’.
Party sources said the video was not a response to the constant accusation that he is the BJP’s ‘B-team’ and that he is only here to split the anti-incumbency votes.
“When Mr. Haasan was critical of Mr. Modi during the lockdown, they said that he is the DMK’s B team. Now, when he is critical of the DMK, he is being called the BJP’s B-team.”
“The video was shot much earlier and the truth is that he has been critical of both the BJP and the two Dravidian parties. This is a video that says that the State’s rights are being ceded to the Centre,” said one of the party’s general secretaries.
