India / MNM's Kamal Haasan to contest from Coimbatore South in TN polls

Coimbatore: Makkal Needhi Maiam's (MNM) chief Kamal Haasan will be contesting from Coimbatore South constituency in the upcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, it was announced on Friday, 12 March.

The party announced its second list of candidates on Friday, one of which was Haasan.

Haasan on Wednesday had announced a list of 70 candidates from his party to contest in the upcoming 6 April Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.

Interestingly, Haasan has chosen a constituency where the fight is between BJP versus Congress instead of DMK versus AIADMK. The News Minute reported that it is being speculated that the BJP will field national president of the party's women's wing Vanathi Srinivasan from the seat.

“Coimbatore is a place close to my heart. ‘Kongu sezhithaal, engum sezhikum’ (If Kongu region flourishes, everywhere else would flourish too) is a proverb. It is sad that it has become a corrupt capital now. I plan on changing that. My voice will ring like the sound of conch from Coimbatore in the Assembly. It is in people’s hand for that to happen,” Kamal said following the announcement of his constituency, reported The News Minute.

As Haasan has started the second phase of his poll campaigning from Alandur metro constituency, speculation said that he intended to contest from there.

MNM’s Second List of Candidates

One of the prominent faces in the second list is former IAS officer Santhosh Babu, who was earlier named as the Vilivakkam candidate but has now been fielded from Velachery.

Actor Sripriya will be fielded from Mylapore, while veteran politician Pazha Karuppaiah will be contesting from T Nagar. Meanwhile, entrepreneur Sarath Babu will be fielded from Alandur.

R Mahendran, who had contested the 2019 polls from the Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat and had polled over 1 lakh votes, will be fielded from Singanallur.