Chennai, Dec 19 (IANS): South Indian movies superstar, Kamal Haasan who is also the President of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), will be joining the Bharat Jodo Yatra led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on December 24.

The announcement of Kamal Haasan has come as a surprise as he was fervently opposing the Congress and its ally, the DMK in Tamil Nadu politics.

However, it is seen as a shrewd political move as he and his party have not been performing well in successive elections. Kamal Haasan himself lost from the Coimbatore South constituency in the 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections and several senior leaders of the party resigned and joined other parties.

A strong polarisation has already taken place in Tamil Nadu politics with the Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) led by the DMK taking on the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the AIADMK and BJP. The Congress, the two communist parties, CPI-M and CPI, the MDMK, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) are among the coalition partners of the SPA. The NDA has the BJP, the AIADMK, the PMK), and some small parties.

The MNM has nothing to boast of other than the screen image of the actor and the organisational network of the party is also not that good. A whole lot of second-rung leaders of the party have already left MNM and Kamal Haasan knows for sure that if he does not align with either of the two fronts, he would not be able to lift the party morale and party cadres would also leave the party.

Talking to IANS, Prof. Hamid Hassan, a retired professor of Political Science, said: "This is a shrewd move by Kamal Haasan to align with the Congress-DMK bandwagon as he knows that fighting single in Tamil Nadu will not reap any dividends. Kamal has always been a staunch supporter of secular progressive forces and hence he won't be at difficulty in having a political alliance with the Secular Progressive Alliance."

With Kamal Haasan in the process of reworking his political strategy, the possibility of the actor contesting the 2024 Lok Sabha elections is high and he can be a major campaigner for the alliance across Tamil Nadu.