MNM Vice President R Mahendran quits, alleges that Kamal Haasan was swayed by outsiders

Vice President of Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiyam, R Mahendran, quit the party on Thursday. In his explosive resignation letter, Mahendran, who served as MNM’s Vice President, blamed ‘outside forces’ of manipulating party chief Kamal Haasan. 

The party faced a humiliating defeat in the 2021 elections and Mahendran blames it on the MNM’s style of operation which turned non-democratic in 2020. He alleges that the party functioning changed after Kamal roped in Sankhya solutions and his now Key advisor, a TV media person in Tamil Nadu, in 2019.

“May 2019 to September 2019 were our post election formative months and there was a great deal of hope in our need to prepare for the…Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. But in October 2019, you decided to bring in Sankhya solutions to handle MNM’s campaign for the 2021 elections, citing that they are an in-house team. In retrospect, it is evident that Sankhya’s head and your key advisor did not boast of any political experience, knowledge or ability,” Mahendran wrote.

Mahendran also alleged that Sankhya solutions wasted six months before the election, without getting the party campaign ready. He also added that hiring the agency was “financial burden with no tangible returns.”

Mahendran also adds that while he tried to bring this up with Kamal, the latter convinced him that ‘this was a short term arrangement”.

“But by mid-2020 it was clear that Sankhya and your key advisor was only dividing the party and employing authoritarian techniques to get their job done,” the letter read.

Mahendran also alleges that MNM’s failure in the elections was a direct outcome of Sankha’s and Kamal’s key advisor’s mishandling of the campaign.

He also added that party members were not consulted when it came to alliance forging ahead of elections.

“…as many as 100 out of 234 seats were given away (to alliance parties) as instructed by you. This not only tremendously damaged the image of MNM in people’s eyes but also shattered the morale of the party cadres…,” he wrote.