Freebies galore, Kamal Haasan poll agenda promises payment to homemakers, computer for every household

On Monday, actor-politician Kamal Haasan assured homemakers of “payment” for their home jobs, computers with high-speed Internet for all households, and farmers’ transformation to agri-entrepreneurs if his party MNM was elected to power in the 2021 elections to the Tamil Nadu Assembly.

Unveiling his party’s seven-point ‘Governance and Economic Agenda,’ he also said people beyond the poverty level will be brought to the ‘Prosperity Line.’

“Homemakers will get their due recognition through payment for their work at home which hitherto has been unrecognised and unmonetised, thus raising the dignity of our womenfolk,” the agenda stated. Haasan was released in the presence of former IAS officer Santhosh Babu, who recently entered Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) in this temple town.

On his campaign trail in northern Tamil Nadu for the second day of Monday, the 66-year-old founder-leader of MNM said that remittances to women at home is likely.
“It’s certainly possible,” he said, when reporters asked him about the “payment” insurance to the women on the agenda, almost a mini manifesto from the party. Through preventing corruption, the state could make itself stable, he said.

To an issue, Haasan ruled that he would not link hands with the Dravidian majors—the reigning AIADMK and the DMK. While Assembly elections were scheduled in April-May, the MNM, AIADMK and DMK have already launched their campaign to defeat the electorate. The MNM said that if it voted for power, its government would take measures to realise the dream of the visionary poet Bharati of empowering women through schooling, jobs and opportunities for entrepreneurship. “Women will break through established glass ceilings by the equal opportunities provided to them by our MNM government,” he said.

Promising what the party called “online homes’,’ the agenda said that its government would supply a machine with high-speed internet (100 mbps and above) aasan visited Dravidian icon and late chief minister C.N. Annadurai’s memorial and interacted with weavers in this town, known for its unique and popular Kancheepuram silk sarees.

The MNM, launched in February, 2018, contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and garnered 3.77 per cent votes is seeking to offer an alternative to the Dravidian majors in the state polls, the first after the demise of DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi and AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa.