Actor Kamal Haasan
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Renowned actor and founder president of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) party Kamal Haasan on Wednesday raised "imminent concern" over the forthcoming election in Tamil Nadu in the wake of the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Participating in a motion of thanks on President Droupadi Murmu's address to the joint sitting of Parliament, he said people want to cast vote and "commissions" are checking their right to vote.
Referring to the SIR, he said, "Bihar has become a land of many living dead" and "we don't want this disease to spread across the country".
"EC (Election Commission) is surely facilitating the spread of this disease," Haasan said in his maiden speech in the Rajya Sabha.
He said his "imminent concern" is the forthcoming elections in Tamil Nadu.
Apparently terming the SIR as "the spell check story of the living dead", Haasan said "we want to cast vote sir and commissions are checking our right to vote".
They are checking the spellings and addresses and that too erroneously, he said.
Haasan said spelling mistakes are a curse only for languages and modern literature forgives these in favour of content as does the internet but "Election Commission obviously does not".
"We fear that there could soon be nearly one crore living dead on paper in Tamil Nadu," he said, demanding that the living dead be resurrected.
"If you refuse to help us with this redirection, you achieve nothing but half-baked, half-finished illegal electoral conquest," Haasan said, amid thumping of benches by Opposition members in the House.
He said nobody conquers in democracy and the juggernaut called democratic India will roll on.
"This democratic juggernaut will roll over differences, but should never roll over people. We will not allow it. Nobody is immortal. No government can or should aim for permanency. No government in the history of this world has achieved it yet and none ever will. This government also falls under the universal political unwritten law," Haasan said, urging all to "grow up along with a growing progressive democracy".
The veteran actor also recounted his journey into cinema and then to the Upper House besides introduction to Tamil history in his speech.
"A child from Paramakudi (his birthplace in Tamil Nadu) was ushered into fame by cinema. That is when I was introduced to cinema and to my Tamil history. I confronted a confusing reality. A reality that did not reflect the promises made in our Constitution that India is a union of states," he said.
Haasan said he was introduced to the Tamil language by his teachers, one of them being C N Annadurai (also known as Perarignar Anna).
"He taught us to confront any invasion on our language, our culture and our rights," the MNM leader said, asking all to set right the present "where we live and die".