With less than a month to go for polls in Tamil Nadu, TTV Dhinakaran’s AMMK got a boost in star power, with popular choreographer Kala Master joining the party. She officially joined the party on Friday in the presence of AMMK Deputy General Secretary and RK Nagar MLA TTV Dhinakaran and former MLA P Vetrivel.
Kala, popularly known as ‘Kala Master’, is a trained classical dancer. She started her career as a choreographer when she was 12, getting a break through her brother-in-law Raghu. Her first film was renowned filmmaker Balachander’s Punnagai Mannan, that starred Kamal Hassan and Revathi. Since then she has worked with a number of leading filmmakers like KS Ravikumar, Mani Ratnam, Priyadarshan and others and worked in over 4,000 songs in various Indian languages and a few foreign languages.
She opened a dance school named ‘Kalaalaya’ in 1993, dedicated to cinematic dance. Kala is also the director and one of the judges of the dance reality show ‘Maanaada Mayilaada’ that airs on Vijay TV. Her sister Brindha is also a popular choreographer.
She won a National Award for Best Choreography in the year 2000 for Malayalam film Kochu Kochu Santhoshangal, and the Tamil Nadu State Award for best choreography for the film Chandramukhi.
Kala’s entry into the AMMK comes days after playback singer Mano joined the party. Mano has recorded over 30,000 songs in Indian languages including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bengali. Popular songs that he has sung include Shenbagame Shenbagame (Enga Ooru paattukkaaran), Mukkala Mukkabla (Kadhalan), Azhagiya Laila (Ullathai Allithaa) and Thillana Thillana (Muthu).
He is also known for dubbing for actor Rajinikanth in Telugu. Mano is one of the judges in Airtel Super SInger Junior. He has won Tamil Nadu State Awards for Best male singer, Filmfare award, Tamil Nadu government’s Kalaimamani Award and Nandi award from the government of Andhra Pradesh.
Tamil Nadu, of course, is no stranger to the film world, with a number of stars making their foray into state politics over the years. DMK’s M Karunanidhi, who was a screenwriter, AIADMK’s MG Ramachandran, his wife Janaki Ramachandran and MGR’s political heir Jayalalithaa, were leading actors before becoming political leaders and Chief Ministers of the state.
The state goes to polls in a single phase on April 18. The AMMK will be going it alone in all 39 constituencies, while DMK has tied up with the Congress, Left parties, the MDMK, VCK, IJK and KMDK. The AIADMK is in an alliance with the BJP, PMK, DMDK, PT, TMC and the New Justice Party.
Source: The News Minute