The mood among Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) cadre remains dismal two days after Kamal Haasan decided against contesting the upcoming Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.
The decision came after Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) insisted that MNM aspirants contest under its Rising Sun symbol instead of their own Torchlight symbol.
Thol Thirumavalavan, an ally and chief of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), was one leader who made a fervent appeal to DMK president MK Stalin to allow the MNM to contest under its own Torchlight symbol.
Thirumavalavan described Kamal Haasan as a respected public figure with a "significant vote base of around four percent" and said his active participation in the electoral fray would strengthen the alliance. He added that it would be beneficial if Haasan contested alongside them.
However, Stalin has not responded to the VCK leader's plea.
Despite the decision not to contest, Kamal Haasan had announced that his party would extend unconditional support to the DMK-led alliance.
"For now, we're being obedient and following the stand taken by our leader," a party office-bearer said on condition of anonymity.
"We'll overcome," he added. "Even if there is a death in our house, we recover with the passage of time. Similarly, the cadres will recover from this incident."
"In the past, we have contested elections and lost. The cadres have recovered from that as well," he continued.
"If we had contested on the Rising Sun symbol, we may have won. But that was not our idea. Our aim was not to send a couple of legislators as 'DMK' proxies into the Assembly. We wanted our candidates to contest under our own symbol and win. Only then would we have been able to question the agendas of the DMK. We cannot support all their schemes," he noted.
"There will be ups and downs in this political journey. We have to face them," he further added.
More unhappy allies
Earlier, DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai, commenting on Haasan's decision, said: "Our leader MK Stalin has welcomed this move. He has termed this a historic and selfless sacrifice by Kamal Haasan, who has taken the interests and welfare of Tamil Nadu into account in making this decision. All DMK workers, cadres, and leaders wholeheartedly thank Kamal Haasan for his noble gesture."
The DMK, understandably, termed it noble. But the sense of disappointment post the seat-sharing announcement runs not just among the MNM cadre.
There is disquiet among the two Left parties and the VCK also over the allocation of seats. They have expressed concern about not receiving the expected number of seats, while 10 seats have been allocated to the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK), which secured only a 0.43 percent vote share in the 2021 Assembly polls.
The Thamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi, led by T Velmurugan, had earlier walked out of the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA), citing the DMK's "big brother" attitude. Velmurugan's party had been part of the DMK alliance since 2019.
Kamal Haasan had reasoned that "in the current challenging political situation, the number of constituencies proposed to be allotted to us, as well as the suggestion that we should contest under the Rising Sun symbol, are not acceptable to the members of Makkal Needhi Maiam or to me.
"I fully understand that there is justification on their side. In a situation where communal forces are scheming in every possible way to capture Tamil Nadu, the overall chances of victory for the alliance become the primary concern. That is fair as well.
"But for the volunteers of MNM, the bond with the Torchlight symbol is emotional. The Torchlight is not just a symbol—it is our identity. I cannot ignore, and will not ignore, the feelings of my volunteers who have stood by me for the past nine years without expecting any personal gain," he added while explaining his call.
He was probably speaking for all the hurt allies. It's just that they didn't want the alliance to fail when it came to winning the big fight. So, they have swallowed their pride for now.
The centrist Makkal Needhi Maiam was formed on February 21, 2018, in Madurai.
The party secured a vote share of 3.72 percent in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. It contested 142 seats in the 2021 Assembly elections but failed to win any. Kamal Haasan himself lost to Vanathi Srinivasan of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Coimbatore South Assembly constituency by a narrow margin of 1,728 votes.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the party extended support to the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance, and the DMK allocated one Rajya Sabha seat to MNM. Kamal Haasan was sworn in as a Rajya Sabha member on July 25, 2025.