Apart from being one of the star constituencies in the Tamil Nadu assembly polls, the Coimbatore South constituency has been witnessing episodes of tough battles and controversies amid displaying a tight race. Though the constituency is being fielded with the candidates of all five fronts, the race is between Kamal Haasan and BJP National Mahila Morcha President Vanathi Srinivasan. 

Kamal Haasan is going to contest in the assembly polls for the first time and he will be contesting as a candidate of his Makkal Needhi Maiam party. On the other side of the aisle, the BJP, which is contesting the polls in the ADMK alliance, has fielded Vanathi Srinivasan as its candidate in Coimbatore South. With the assembly poll is just a week away, the campaign trail in Coimbatore is getting heated up between the two of them and the clash has triggered controversies and shocking allegations and the recent example is the output of how the debate challenge had gone wrong.

Vanathi Srinivasan has been getting support for the campaign from the senior BJP leaders, Union Ministers, and celebrities. Recently, Union Minister Smriti Irani had issued a challenge to actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan to have an open debate with Vanathi Srinivasan so that the people of the Coimbatore South constituency will have an idea on who knows better about the issues in the constituency. 

After Smriti Irani had issued a challenge to Kamal Haasan, Makkal Needhi Maiam's Propaganda Secretary CK Kumaravel had issued a statement a few days ago in which he said that Kamal Haasan is ready to participate in a debate with Prime Minister Modi and his cabinet ministers, including Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The statement added that Kamal will then debate with 'Thukkada' (small) politicians like Vanathi Srinivasan and the MNM's Youth wing members are enough to debate with the BJP candidate.

As the MNM leader had called her Thukkada politician, Vanathi Srinivasan had strongly hit out at Kamal Haasan and his party. Responding to the MNM's comments, the BJP candidate had questioned Kamal Haasan's stature to call her as the Thukkada politician. While speaking to the voters in Coimbatore south during the campaign trail, Vanathi Srinivasan said, "I ask that actor (Kamal Hassan), you have performed only lip service these days".

"What is lip service? You can take it in two meanings for him. One, doing just be talking, and the other is doing service only for lips. Can you call me a thukkada politician?", Vanathi Srinivasan questioned Kamal Haasan as her statement had stirred controversy over her double entendre attack against the actor. The BJP's candidate had also released a video to respond to Kamal Haasan's party. 

In a video, she said, "I was born in a small village, studied in a government school, and became a lawyer. I have two children and a family and I have sacrificed all of it to serve the people of my constituency. In the last five years, I have done so much for the constituency, which can be readily checked on my social media accounts. If I am being called a thukkada politician, is this the respect they (Makkal Needhi Maiam) give to women?"

The campaign trail in Tamil Nadu has been witnessing a series of events from candidates' turning into a steward for the people by washing clothes, cooking in hotels, serving tea to the people, and ironing shirts to the episodes of what had been awful clashes between the candidates with spearing personal attacks. Earlier, veteran actor Radharavi attacked Kamal Haasan personally while campaigning in Coimbatore in support of Vanathi Srinivasan. It must be noted that Tamil Nadu will go to the single-phase poll on April 6 and the votes will be counted on May 2, during which the results will be announced.