Haasan keen to contest LS polls from Coimbatore, say party leaders

MNM contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls & got a 3.7% vote share predominantly from urban areas but in 2021 assembly elections the party’s performance diminished.

Chennai: Actor-politician Kamal Haasan told his party on Friday that he intends to contest from Coimbatore in next year’s Lok Sabha elections though he lost from the city to BJP’s Vanathi Srinivasan in the 2021 assembly elections.

Actor-politician Kamal Haasan addressed a meeting with his party members in Coimbatore on Friday, where he said that his defeat in the assembly elections defied reason. (AFP)

Haasan was addressing a meeting with party members in Coimbatore on Friday where he said that his defeat defied reason.

Haasan launched Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) in 2018.

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“He spoke in detail about the approach we should take for the 2024 parliamentary elections and outlined the next steps to the party executives,” a party member said. “He said we should move forward with the experience of the previous election and asked us to start booth-level committees.”

Though Haasan has walked alongside Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during his Bharat Jodo Yatra and is on good terms with the DMK, MNM has not made it clear if it would align with the INDIA group. Allies DMK and Congress are part of the 28 parties of the INDIA group formed to defeat the BJP.

READ | Kamal Haasan loses Coimbatore south to BJP’s Vanathi by a thin margin

MNM contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and got a 3.7% vote share predominantly from urban areas but in the 2021 assembly elections the party’s performance diminished,getting only 2.5% votes. In the results declared on May 2, all the candidates -135 from MNM -- lost. Haasan, the chief ministerial candidate, who contested in Coimbatore South constituency, lost to BJP’s Srinivasan in a fight that went down to the wire.