Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections 2026 | Kamal Haasan’s somersault: From opposing DMK to withdrawing

Chennai: At the height of the 2019 Lok Sabha campaign, then newbie politician Kamal Haasan smashed a television set to vent his frustration against Tamil Nadu’s well-entrenched political parties, notably the DMK and AIADMK.

Though it was just a video seeking votes for his Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) candidates under the torch light symbol, Kamal Haasan’s fierce voice against corruption and nepotism and the need for a political change in the state became a defining image of the election, despite his party scoring less than 5 per cent of votes.

Seven years later, on March 24, Kamal Haasan spoke with the same fierceness, but only to withdraw from the April 23 assembly election contest. DMK, the party that he opposed tooth and nail but befriended after his political fortunes plummeted, refused to allot him even two seats under the torch light symbol.

He announced at the Anna Arivalayam, the DMK headquarters, that his party will campaign for the candidates of the Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA). “I don’t consider this as a sacrifice, but as a duty,” the cinema icon said, in what is being interpreted as the first step towards dissolving his eight-year-old party or merging it with another.

The decision drew sharp criticism from his supporters and critics alike, who argued he should have secured seats for a few long-time political associates. The actor is a Rajya Sabha MP elected in 2025 with support from DMK and its allies.

Kamal Haasan ran his party only for three years and the electoral loss – he couldn’t even win his own seat in Coimbatore (South) – that his MNM faced in the 2021 assembly polls alienated him from his trusted lieutenants who quit after blamed his flawed strategy.

The actor never fully recovered from the loss – he almost abandoned the party to refocus on cinema. His 2022 film Vikram, which was a runaway success at the box office, dropped ample hints about his future political path as well – the movie’s theatrical distribution was handled by Red Giant Productions, whose current head is Inban Udhayanidhi, grandson of Chief Minister M K Stalin.

Two years later, his MNM formally joined the DMK alliance but did not contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections after Kamal Haasan was promised a Rajya Sabha seat. His meetings with Stalin and deputy chief minister Udhayanidhi Stalin became regular.

Even at MNM’s peak, when it positioned itself as the change agent, Kamal Haasan picked wrong foes in elections that almost pushed him to the sidelines.

In 2019 Lok Sabha polls and when the AIADMK-BJP alliance was unpopular across Tamil Nadu, Kamal Haasan’s attacks were targeted primarily at a resurgent DMK its dynastic politics. Two years later, while vowing to challenge DMK and AIADMK, he picked a seat pitting against Congress and BJP candidates, then allies of the Dravidian giants.

Prof Ramu Manivannan, former head, Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Madras, told DH that Kamal Haasan was never capable of realistically serving as an alternative he projected. Instead, he has merely used politics as a defensive shield.

“His party exists only on paper and is not even functional as a movement. In an intrinsic way, he has become an MP, and I don’t think he has any bigger vision than that,” he said.

Kamal Haasan could have secured at least one seat for an associate, which shows he isn’t keen on broadening his base, Manivannan said. “For all practical purposes, he has become part of the DMK and compromised his greater projection of identity. He has gained power but sacrificed his party,” Manivannan added.