CHENNAI: Raising voices for farmers and agriculture will be on top of Makkal Needhi Maiam’s priority list going forward, said party founder Kamal Haasan on Friday, after the party emerged a strong alternative to the two Dravidian majors in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Speaking to media persons at the party headquarters, Kamal said he considered the party’s performance a victory owing to the candidates’ honest efforts to garner votes while hoping that they would all turn winners next time around. “We have done what we could do in 14 months. If we had more time, we could have done even better in rural areas,” he said.
The party put up an impressive fight in the urban areas, especially in constituencies such as South Chennai where the party candidate R Rangarajan secured a vote share of 12.03% with a total vote of 1,35,465, bringing it to the third position. The party fared well in Coimbatore too with Mahendran R garnering 1,45,104 and 11.6% of the vote share.
Thanking voters for embracing their 14-month-old party, Kamal said, “I would like to congratulate all winning parties and honourable Prime Minister for their victory on behalf of the MNM.”
With the party being hailed a strong alternative to the DMK and AIADMK, Haasan asserted that their main agenda would be addressing problems of the farmers. “It is one word, but there are many problems regarding the farmers. Our request is that there should be no government which does not address the problems of the poor and the farmers.”
According to Election Commission of India data, the ‘other’ parties including MNM, Naam Tamilar
Katchi (NTK) and Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) secured 17.1 % votes, next only to the DMK with 32.76% and the AIADMK with 18.48%.
However, Kamal Haasan said that his party had a long way to go. “The first lesson we learnt is that there is a long way ahead. We managed to gather many votes despite all kinds of money circulation, which, in itself, is a big achievement,” said Haasan.