#NLDhulai: Get the Tamil Nadu politics, cinema connection right!

Hello NL team,

Writing after a long time. I will have to correct you with respect to Tamil Nadu’s politics and its affiliation to the cinema. It should be noted that it is the era where Annadurai, M Karunanidhi, Jayalalithaa, MGR and even Sivaji Ganesan were all a part of political parties before they entered the cinema and later 4 out of the 5 went on to become Cms. Even SS Rajendran who was quite a successful politician later in his career went through the same route . It’s naive to think that fan following will turn into a ground level cadre which can make you a CM which is what most of these cine stars including Kamal Hassan and Rajinikanth think. I believe they won’t be successful through this route. In fact, Vijaykanth is the lone exception to this when he became the leader of the Opposition in 2011. But thanks to overestimation, booze and Vaiko (Y Gopalaswamy) as the joke goes has lost it completely and been reduced to a meme producing machine. In fact, I could talk about so many cinema stars who have been linked to political parties i.e., first started with political affiliations, then went to the cinema and came back as successful stars. That’s how the politics and cinema are intertwined in Tamil culture and not the route you think it is. If tomorrow Ajith, Vijay or Kamal try their hand at the Vijaykanth route, I can quite confidently say they could lose their own deposits in that election. So a better analysis is needed before making blanket statements like what you said —  any big star can be a CM in Tamil Nadu.

NTR is an enigma and is probably the lone exception in South India when it comes to what he did in one election. In fact, its easy to a revolution in India as such though Abhinandan will clutch to his AAP straws.

PS: Chiranjeevi has a bigger fan following in Andhra and Telangana than what Kamal does across India and see what his political fate ended up being

Thanks and Regards,

Kishore