Ahead Of Tamil Nadu Polls, Kamal Haasan Faces Insider-Outsider Debate

Tamil Nadu votes for its 234-member Assembly in a single phase on April 6, with votes to be counted on May 2

Well before the Tamil Nadu election date was announced, it was speculated that actor-politician Kamal Haasan would contest from a constituency in Chennai, where his party, the Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) did well in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The Velachery and Mylapore seats were among those mentioned. Kamal Haasan has however chosen to look west instead, zeroing in on Coimbatore (South), where he will face off against the BJP's Vanathi Srinivasan and the Congress' MS Jayakumar in a high-profile contest. Why did Kamal Haasan choose Coimbatore? One reason was that R Mahendran, his party's Vice President, secured 23,838 votes while contesting the Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat.