A year after Kamal Haasan, one of India’s biggest movie stars and a Padma Bhushan awardee, entered the Rajya Sabha for the first time, statistics show his performance as a Parliamentarian has been abysmal. Official data from the Rajya Sabha website and non-profit PRS India shows that till July 31, the 71-year-old Haasan has an attendance record of only 51%, has participated in only one debate and asked only two questions in the Upper House of the Parliament.
He has also not contributed any Private Member’s Bill. Haasan, President of Makkal Needhi Maiam which is DMK’s alliance partner, has not attended a single day of the current monsoon session, missing the passage of Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Bill on July 29 which brought the national song Vande Mataram into its ambit. DMK’s Lok Sabha MPs Kanimozhi Karunanidhi and A Raja vehemently opposed the bill stating that it is against the nation’s secularis.
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Haasan entered the upper House of the Parliament on July 25, 2025 with the support of DMK which was the ruling party in Tamil Nadu then. His attendance during the 2025 winter and monsoon sessions were 80 and 100% respectively; but it dropped to 26% in the 2026 budget session. He participated in the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address on February 4. The two questions he has asked pertain to India’s thorium reserves and transition to E20 fuel. He continues to work as lead actor and produce films under his home banner.
Other first-time DMK MPs who were sworn in on the same day, Rajathi and SR Sivalingam, have made their presence felt in better ways in the last one year. Rajathi has participated in 257 debates, has an attendance of 97% and asked 61 questions. Sivalingam has asked 50 questions, participated in one debate and has an attendance of 53%. Second-time Parliamentarian and senior lawyer P Wilson of the DMK, who also was sworn in on the same day, has till date participated in a whopping 856 debates, asked 449 questions, given 16 Private Member’s Bills and has an attendance of 96%. Similarly, AIADMK MPs M Dhanapal and IS Inbadurai who were sworn in on the same day have also been busy in the House; Dhanapal has an attendance of 73%, participated in 16 debates and asked 55 questions.
Inbadurai has 63% attendance, participated in 8 debates and asked 68 questions. Haasan’s office did not respond to a detailed email questionnaire seeking his comments. K Srinivasan, a Chennai-based journalist who recognises the best Parliamentarians through his Sansad Ratna awards since 2010, said that Haasan is wasting a golden opportunity to work for the people. “Getting an MP position through privilege alone is not important. You have to work as well. MPs get several privileges; they can hire research teams. Their interventions on public issues are taken seriously by the government,” Srinivasan said. This is why political parties should reconsider sending celebrities to Parliament and instead reward hard-working party cadres who were still in touch with people and their issues, Srinivasan said, recalling the poor parliamentary record of celebrity MPs like Sachin Tendulkar.
