Makkal Needhi Maiam president Kamal Haasan said he was fighting on his strength, which was honesty, and not weakness in the opposite camp.
Addressing reporters after filing his nomination, Mr. Haasan said he chose the Coimbatore South Assembly constituency because there was an attempt to communally polarise the place. “There are attempts to destroy communal peace here. I want to be a voice against it,” he said.
The incumbents had failed to develop the constituency he said, and pointed to the delayed airport expansion, absence of drainage, good roads and streetlights in a few localities to underscore his point. Be it the Metro Rail or other such big ticket projects, promises were made but never kept, he said.
Mr. Haasan said he chose to contest from Coimbatore because he wanted the city that was known as the ‘Manchester of the South’ to not lose its status and pride. Coimbatore South was a place close to his heart, he had visited the place several times and he had friends here. Therefore, the outsider tag would not apply to him, he said.
Responding to BJP candidate Vanathi Srinivasan who had said that Mr. Haasan would return to acting after the election results, the MNM president said that as professionals, there was nothing wrong in returning to acting or practising law or medicine.
For him politics was not a profession as it was for others. “For me politics is duty and that it is to serve the people,” he said.
