Kamal Haasan, the actor-politician and founder of the Makkal Neethi Maiya (MNM) party, is set to enter the Rajya Sabha in the biennial elections to the Upper House from Tamil Nadu slated for June 19 with the backing of the ruling DMK here.
The Election Commission had on May 26 announced the poll schedule for the biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha — two seats from Assam and six seats from Tamil Nadu that fall vacant on June 14 and July 24, respectively.
A versatile actor and innovator in Tamil cinema for over six decades, besides acting in Malayalam, Telugu, Hindi, Kannada and Bengali films, the 71-year-old Kamal Haasan will be the third big star to enter the Upper House from Tamil Nadu since the late Shivaji Ganesan was nominated to the Rajya Sabha by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the early 1980s, followed by J. Jayalalithaa elected as the AIADMK candidate in 1984 when her mentor M.G. Ramachandran — MGR for the masses — was chief minister.
In Tamil Nadu, where politics and cinema have shared an organic affinity, “Nadigar Thilagam” Shivaji Ganesan started as a member of the DMK in the early 1950s before he joined the Congress. Following the 1969 Congress split, he aligned with the Congress (O) led by K. Kamaraj and, years later, joined the Janata Dal under V.P. Singh’s leadership. In between, Shivaji Ganesan floated his regional outfit, which came a cropper in the 1989 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.
MGR started as a Congressman before he joined the DMK. He founded the AIADMK in 1972. Haasan’s family, too, has had strong Congress connections in the past, and the actor continues to swear by some Gandhian ideals.
DMK president and chief minister M.K. Stalin on Wednesday announced his party’s support to the MNM in the Rajya Sabha polls, pointing to the understanding reached with Haasan during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections when the MNM was part of the DMK-led mega alliance.
The MNM faced the 2021 Assembly elections on its own, but without success,
and Haasan, who contested the Coimbatore South Assembly seat, lost to the BJP’s Vanathi Srinivasan.
Haasan floated the MNM in February 2018 as what he called an ideologically “centrist party” and as a possible alternative to the major Dravidian parties — the DMK and the AIADMK — a strategy that the latest actor-entrant into Tamil Nadu politics, Vijay, has also adopted in the run-up to the 2026 Assembly polls.
While Haasan, ahead of the release of his forthcoming film Thug Life, has kicked up a row with some controversial remarks about the Kannada language that even Karnataka chief minister Siddharamiah has taken objection to, his standing and contribution to south Indian cinema has been extraordinary with over 230 films to his credit.
He has been a strident critic of both the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which the DMK hopes to draw on during the 2026 Assembly elections. The MNM’s executive committee, which met here on Wednesday, formally endorsed Haasan’s candidature to contest for the Rajya Sabha after the DMK offered a seat to the MNM.
The DMK and its allies, including the Congress, the two main Left parties and the Dalit party VCK led by Thol Thirumavalavan, command a majority of 158 MLAs in the 234-member Assembly, which should help the DMK easily win four of the six Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant.
The principal Opposition AIADMK, with 66 MLAs, will pitch in for the two remaining seats, with the BJP renewing its ties with the party. At least 34 votes are needed to elect one member to the Rajya Sabha from the state.
For the three Rajya Sabha seats the DMK is directly contesting, chief minister Stalin has renominated senior lawyer P. Wilson, who has been handling important cases for the party in both the Supreme Court and Madras High Court, for another six-year term.
The DMK has also fielded modernist Tamil poet and writer Rokkaiyah Malik aka Salma, a former town panchayat chairperson from Tiruchirappalli who unsuccessfully contested the 2006 Assembly elections from Marungapuri on a DMK ticket, and party senior from Salem S.R. Sivalingam, who could not be accommodated in the Lok Sabha elections last year.
This has also ensured a measure of balance among the major communities in ticket distribution, a DMK source said.