With the Tamil Nadu polls nearing its due date, parties are gearing up to contest in the Assembly elections for a state that has a large void after the death of two top leaders.
As such, Kamal Haasan, the actor-turned-politician attacked Prime Minister Modi’s recent initiative, hours before commencing his campaign’s first phase for the two-year old party founded by the politician himself.
The star, in his latest statement slamming Modi’s party BJP that is also standing in the TN elections, criticized the PM’s new parliament project which is going to cost the government a thousand crores.
Narendra Modi, on December 10th, announced the cementing of a new project for the benefit of the parliament building, aimed at giving it a new look by the construction of another centre altogether at a production price of Rs. 1000 crore.
On Sunday, the founder of Makkal Needhi Maiaim (MNM), Mr. Haasan, questioned the Prime Minister the advantage of the new building during a time when the country’s economy was aggressively collapsing, thanks to the government’s laidback attitude in terms of people’s progress.
Prior to his campaign, the veteran actor asked as to what was the need of laying the foundation stone of such an extravagantly high priced project which isn’t the need of the hour.
Sunday’s tweet of Mr. Haasan when translated from Tamil read, “Why a 1,000-crore new Parliament when half of India is starving after losing its livelihood due to coronavirus? When thousands died as the Great Wall of China was being built, the rulers said it was to protect the people. To protect whom are you building the Rs1,000-crore Parliament? Please answer my honourable elected PM.”
The politician has consistently hit hard on the policies and actions of the Central government, more recently regarding the suppression of the voice of the press when it pertains to matters of the government and its rule. He tweeted, “The print media has been hit hard by the general freeze. The Press Association of India continues to knock on government doors to announce concessions. The blindness of the central government is not appropriate. The fourth pillar of democracy must be guarded.”
As for the new parliament building, Narendra Modi executed the groundbreaking ceremony for the start of the construction work that is situated in the centre of the national capital. The new centre will function as the prime part of the Rs.20,000 crore project taken up to renovate the Central Vista of Delhi.
However, due to the ever-growing petitions against the extremely expensive project by citizens, the Supreme Court has refused to allow the work to begin for its construction as of now. It can be commenced post the top court hearing all pleas.
The government was accused in the past week of “pushing forward aggressively” with the project before SC’s order came in.
With the state elections for the assembly due in May 2021, Mr. Haasan’s tweet to the PM was the first attack on the government prior to kickstarting his campaign in Madurai.
While the actor is expected to be contesting himself in the elections this time, his MNM party had stated their agendas of eradicating corruption, providing more employment opportunities, developing villages and offering clean and safe drinking water. Preciously in 2019, the party got their hands on 4% of the total votes in the Lok Sabha.
BJP, backed by PM Modi, is looking towards setting its foot in the southern state with the alliance of the ruling party AIADMK as the state continued to remain away from the grip of the Centre’s ruling party due to the presence of highly respected politicians in the region.
Tamil film actors like Khushbu Sundar has been brought in by BJP to campaign for the party ahead of the election, along with other top leaders.
Regarding MNM’s ideologies and priorities of the minute, Mr. Haasan said today, “Tamil Nadu remains degenerated. We would set it right. We are launching our campaign complying with government norms.”
