Kamal Haasan’s MNM alleges DMK has copied its poll promises

“I would be pleased if the DMK, which had copied all the highlights of our election manifesto, will also take up our honesty,” Haasan tweeted in Tamil.

Kamal Haasan-led Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) on Monday accused the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) of copying many of its poll promises, including those about providing a monthly salary to home-makers and creation of jobs. The allegations came a day after DMK chief MK Stalin said that if voted to power in the 2021 assembly elections, his party would give ₹1000 per month to every housewife in the state. It was one of the seven key promises that he made while announcing his party’s vision ahead for the next 10 years.

“Our party [MNM], which intends to give government salary to housewives, celebrates womanhood every day,” Kamal Haasan said on Twitter. (AFP)

“I would be pleased if the DMK, which had copied all the highlights of our election manifesto, will also take up our honesty,” Haasan tweeted in Tamil.

MNM’s vice president, R Mahendran, also alleged that the DMK had repeated the welfare measures announced earlier in their election manifesto in the poll-bound southern state. “In February 2020, we had presented 'Reimagining Tamil Nadu' with measures for women homemakers. If they (DMK) have proof that this vision was launched before, please educate us. No doubt that it came from us,” news agency ANI quoted Mahendran as saying.

The MNM chief made these promises during his poll campaign in southern Tamil Nadu districts while interacting with the fishing communities in the coastal Thoothukudi district in December last year. He said to a cheering crowd that many people had mocked him for his announcement of salary to housewives but European nations are thinking about experimenting with such an idea.

Assembly elections are scheduled in Tamil Nadu for April 6 and Haasan’s MNM had been projecting itself as an alternate to the two Dravidian majors DMK and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).