CHENNAI: Amid anticipation over announcement of Urban Local Body (ULB) polls, actor-politician Kamal Haasan-led Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) has commenced its hunt for candidates to contest in the party ticket. It seems like a well-planned move to avoid controversies as the party had failed to field enough candidates in the recent rural local body polls.
Last week, posters displaying images of Kamal Hassan with the slogans 'Let Us Set Right Tamil Nadu' and 'Who Is Your Candidate', were pasted across South Chennai.
When The New Indian Express contacted the phone numbers displayed in the poster, a person claiming to be an MNM functionary answered the call and said that the party is looking for eligible candidates willing to support and work for social causes.
The man also asked this reporter if he is interested to be the candidate of the party and promised the support of cadres during the election.
Commenting on the posters, one of the MNM functionaries from delta districts told The New Indian Express, "In our district, we didn’t paste such posters. I spoke with our partymen in Chennai and they confirmed that they are indeed looking for eligible candidates to field in the ULB elections."
He added that during the last rural local body elections held in nine districts, the party had managed to field only 28 candidates, even though 140 district councillor seats were contested.
And the party bagged a decent number of votes only in Chennai and Coimbatore districts in the last Parliament and Assembly elections. "To avoid such controversies and to prepare for the election well in advance, our party functionaries are taking such efforts," he said.
However, Murali Appas, State secretary (media), MNM, told The New Indian Express, "The posters did not seek candidates, but were meant for creating awareness among the masses about the local body elections and candidates for the respective wards. Since our party managed to bag around 20,000 votes in every Assembly constituency in Chennai, there is no scarcity of candidates."
He added that the party has approved eight posters with different messages to create awareness among the voters and social activists over the upcoming polls.