MNM draws a blank; cadre disappointed
Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam led alliance failed to win even a single seat with its chief losing the close fight in Coimbatore South constituency in a margin of 1,439 votes after projecting itself as an alternative to the DMK and the AIADMK in the State.
After leading the Coimbatore South seat all through the day, Kamal lost the seat by a narrow margin to BJP’s women wing’s national head Vanathi Srinivasan. The result was a big disappointment for his party as many thought he alone would emerge victorious as he spent a considerable amount of time campaigning in the Coimbatore South constituency.
After launching his party in February 2018, the actor’s party unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha polls with a vote share of 3.78 per cent polling over 16 lakh votes.
Kamal jumped into the poll wagon and announced his candidature from Coimbatore South and joined an alliance with actor Sarathkumar’s AISMK and IJK.
MNM general secretary AG Mourya, a retired IPS officer, said that he was disappointed by the election results. “We expected that people would vote for clean politics promised by us. We hoped we will win few seats at least five to six seats. We know for certain our leader will win,” he said. However, he said that the results show the need to do work along with the public at the field level to know them better and perform better in future polls. MNM’s vice president Dr R Mahendran, who contested from Singanallur constituency, vice president V Ponraj (Anna Nagar), general secretary Dr Santhosh Babu (Velacherry), and youth wing leader and lyricist Snegan (Virugambakkam) lost by a big margin.