In a huge setback for actor turned politician and leader of Makkal Needhi Maiam, Kamal Haasan, his party’s general secretary A Arunachalam on Friday (25 December) resigned from the party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Arunachalam, an active office-bearer of the MNM and an important figure in Tamil Nadu politics had been associated with Haasan led MNM from the beginning in 2018 and his exit from MNM comes as a setback to Kamal’s party with the state gearing up for elections.
According to Arunachalam, his reason for leaving MNM was his disagreement over farm sector reforms as he had supported the three farm sector reform legislation introduced by PM Modi. He joined the BJP on Friday in the presence of Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar.
He felt it was necessary to quit MNM because of Haasan’s stand against the laws which, the former emphasized, are beneficial to the farmers. He also said that MNM’s claim as a centrist party had also changed.
Arunachalam stated that he had reasoned with Hassan regarding these laws and had asked to look beyond party politics because of the government initiative aimed at helping farmers, however, the party still decided to oppose the farm laws, he added.