Kamal as a Politician!

Kamal as a Politician!

Why not?    Is the first reaction.

Does he have the experience? Will he handle, Is he eligible, numerous such apprehensions. My submission is, the people  running the show according to me are neither eligible nor qualified. If we have accepted them and they are at the helm of affairs for many many years and giving (mis)governance to us,  why not Kamal? The way he has stepped in makes his intentions clear.

During the 80s, he defined clearly that his fan clubs be made into welfare organisations and need to take up social activities. They were known for their blood donation camps, organ donation camp, eye donation etc.,Unfortunately, Kamal didn’t have the huge mass that Rajnikanth possessed. The choice of movies and characters that Kamal chose never indicated his preference towards becoming a leader or a do-gooder.  He focussed on his talents to be a film maker and was trying his luck with all departments of movie making. The amount of criticism he used to receive from within the industry was enormous. The beauty of Kamal was he never would get disturbed and continued with his job.

Kamal was known for his confused speeches and interviews, i suppose he always wanted to portray himself as an intellectual amidst the crowd. But what has been witnessed post his “Viswaroopam” struggle was a lot of clarity in his communication. He started speaking less but with lot of substance. He was bold enough to criticise the Government directly for its inefficiency during the Chennai Floods. When the govt. machinery came down severly on him by disconnecting power and water supply to his Alwarpet home. He was cool enough in handling the situation by not reacting to it.

It was a cinematic situation where Kamal was dragged into the political scene by some immature politicians reverting to silly remarks. Kamal used the “Bigg Boss” opportunity in the right manner to revert back. His progressive thoughts and comments were received well across a lot of social groups. This has given him a lot of confidence and he too has transformed a lot as a presenter. He did make some strong point of views and overtly shared a lot of anti government statements both in twitter and through Television.

The question to ponder upon is, Can thoughts be converted into action?. Does he have the ability to convert support into a Vote. In Politics, especially during the process of election it is this skill that is displayed effectively by seasoned politicians to garner votes. The machinery deployed, the grassroot’s commitment and discipline to work for their leader makes a big difference in winning and losing. Our politicians have mastered this art over a period and clearly dominate the scene.

The methodology they adopt in selecting the village secretary to district secretaries to regional secretaries largely depends on the caste/communities they belong. Can Kamal enter into a game like this? Will he succeed? The way the monies are spent on communication are definitely beyond what the Election commission prescribes, all parties have their way in executing their plans without falling into EC’s gambit. Can Kamal pull these off? Every Political outfit has a team of top rung leaders who move around the party high command. These leaders generally exhibit skills such as mobilising crowds, charting out campaign plans, handling communities and castes, mobilising finance, handling press, holding internal meetings and so on. Can Kamal make successful identification of these characters? Because this will reflect a lot on the party that he intends to start. Another critical thing that Kamal and his family in whole needs to be prepared as there will be lot of personal mudslinging which will hit really hard. Not only Kamal will be on the radar, even his children and wife and girl friends will face enough and more from the media. An unbiased splitting of personal and public life should be undertaken with lots of care.

Summing it all, Kamal as an individual has the charisma, character, brand image and fan following. The aspect that he needs to work on is developing an organisational structure and a mechanism to reach out to the grassroots. He has the physical strength to be a leader for masses, but he needs to take care of the last mile connect. Before he begins Kamal needs to travel the length and breadth of TN and should reach out to his loyalists, identify local issues, identify local leaders and so on. If he successfully programmes all these then there is no stopping of Kamal as a politician!