Nadigar Sangam elections: After much drama, the actors' guild goes to the polls

The Nadigar Sangam elections is held at St.Ebas Higher Secondary School in Mylapore in Chennai on Sunday, 23 June, after the Madras High Court intervened to stay the order passed by the Registrar of Societies, thereby allowing actors' guild to conduct the polls on the said date.

Over 3000 members, comprising of film and drama artists, will exercise their franchise in the Nadigar Sangam elections between 7 am and 5 pm. However, Tamil superstar Rajinikanth, who is busy with the shooting of his upcoming movie Darbar in Mumbai, is not taking part in the process this time as his postal vote was delayed.

Sharing his unhappiness over the development, Rajinikanth tweeted, "I am currently shooting in Mumbai. I received my postal vote for the Nadigar Sangam elections only at 6.45pm this evening, despite the efforts I took to receive it earlier. I regret that I was unable to cast my vote because of this delay. It is strange and unfortunate. This should not have happened ..."

Uncertainty had loomed over the elections after the Registrar of Societies indefinitely postponed it following a complaint filed by 61 members, who cast their votes in the previous elections, stating that their names were missing from the voters' list and alleged that their names were removed by the current office bearers to prevent them from exercising their rights in the elections.

The association argued that out of 61 members, 44 of them were shifted to amateur artists from the professional artists, four members have been removed, while 13 members can cast their votes. 

To this, the Madras High Court cleared the decks for the elections a few days ago by passing a stay on the order passed by Registrar of Societies, while barring the counting of votes till the next hearing on 8 July.

The elections are supposed to be held every three year and the Pandavar Ani's tenure was over last year, but it got extended by an additional six months to complete the long pending Nadigar Sangam building.

Nasser and Vishal-led Pandavar Ani came to power in 2015 by defeating Sarath Kumar and Radha Ravi's team. It is taking on newly-formed team Swami Sankardas led by actor K Bhagyaraj.

Interestingly, K Bhagyaraj and Ishari Ganesh, who are contesting the post of president and general secretary against Nasser and Vishal, had supported Pandavar Ani in the previous elections.

Karthi from Pandavar Ani is up against Prashanth from Sankar Das team for the treasurer's post, while Poochi Murugan and Karunas are locking horns against Kutty Padmini and Udhaya for the post of vice-presidents.