MNM vote share dips as it remains urban-centric

CHENNAI: Actor Kamal Haasan led Makkal Needhi Maiam not only failed to win a seat in the State Assembly polls but also polled fewer votes than it got in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Haasan, who was tipped to be winning the Coimbatore South constituency, lost by a slender margin to BJP’s Vanathi Srinivasan in a tough three-cornered contest with Congress Mayura Jayakumar. As if his loss was not enough, the MNM’s vote share has come down to 2.84 per cent, polling

12.24 lakh votes, as against 3.7 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

The actor-politician was the only candidate in his party to finish runner-up while about a dozen or so finished third including party vice-president Dr Mahendran, general secretary Dr Santhosh Babu and environmental wing secretary Padma Priya. According to the election results, the MNM polled over 10,000 votes in 44 assembly constituencies. Of them, it got over 20,000 votes in seven and 30,000 in three –- Singanallur, Maduravoyal and Shozhinganallur.

Like in the Lok Sabha polls, the MNM got its bulk of votes in the urban and semi-urban constituencies while it fared poorly in the rural seats. A senior MNM leader said the results show their support base in the State.

“We are only a three-year-old party. It is our first assembly polls. As our leader said we will continue to work for the people’s welfare. The election result is not the end of the world. Even the DMK came to power in the state, only in their third election,” he said.

Prof Bernard D’Sami of Loyola College said the results had shown the reality with the number of votes. “State election has given a clear message that the party’s vote share is very limited and it doesn’t have a mass support in the State,” he said, asking the MNM to identify its support base clearly and focus on nurturing it and expanding to the rural areas.

“One cannot run a political party depending on the urban, educated and salaried class support base alone. Their number is very small and they are a floating population. They should focus on identifying issues and articulating it to expand its base to rural heartlands,” he said.