The election date of the South Indian Artistes Association(SIAA) was announced yesterday. Date of election has been officially announced as July 15, 2015. There had been news speculating about irregularities that had been happening in the accounts of the SIAA. It was mainly spoken that irregularities had taken place in allotting the tender to SPI Cinemas for construction of a Multiplex in the SIAA premises. Later the initiative to construct a Multiplex by SPI Cinemas was put on hold by a court order.
In the meantime, actors Vishal, Nasser, Sivakumar, Ponvannan, Anandraj and many others from SIAA started to voice out their views complaining irregularities in allotting the Multiplex contract to SPI Cinemas. The voice out from Vishal and team started to create an awareness among the others in the SIAA and many others joined them to support directly and indirectly. The support of actors Aarya, Suriya and many others encoruaged Vishal, Nasser and their team to fight vigorously. On few occasions Vishal, Nasser and few others were called at the office of the SIAA by the Sarathkumar – President, Radharavi – General Secretary, and other officer bearers for an enquiry and were also threatened by them not to speak anything against SIAA or it office bearers. But Vishal and Nasser did not mind to comment about the irregularities that had taken place in the Multiplex contract.
Parallel to the ongoing SIAA issue, Vishal started to raise voice against video piracy. In few instances he walked into the cable operators station and caught hold of them for video piracy and handed over to the nearest police stations and cases were filed against them. Vishal’s such activities brought the attention of other artistes and received appreciations.
Vishal and Nasser’s dedication towards SIAA and their voice outs complaining irregularities in SIAA kept irritating Sarathkumar, Radharavi and Kalai of SIAA. In few occasions Radharavi and Kalai had abused actors Nasser, Sivakumar and Vishal during meetings held at Trichy and other places. It was “Ottran Cheithi” and “Fast Messenger” online news websites which exclusively published the authenticated video speech of Radharavi and Kalai abusing Nasser, Sivakumar and Vishal. Vishal and Nasser after seeing the video footage wrote many complaints to the Sarathkumar, President of SIAA and it is said that no proper disciplinary action was taking against Radharavi and Kalai. Video footage of Radharavi and Kalai’s abusive speech had been circulating on whatsapp of many artistes and this created a bad remark on Radharavi and sympathy against Nasser, Sivakumar and Vishal. Direct and indirect support to Nasser and team kept increasing.
But Radharavi who had included hundreds of stage drama artistes in the SIAA were always the backbone of Radharavi to win elections. The reason was that it was Radharavi who initiated to include them in the SIAA and those artistes were only in directed contact with Radharavi and non others in the SIAA or any other artistes. Vishal who had understood about the support of Radharavi, started to contact the stage drama artistes. initially, few days ago Vishal met Mr.Subramani, a stage drama artiste from Pudukottai who is a member of SIAA and has a group of supporters.
This sudden activity of Vishal, created a shock amongst Sarthkumar, Radharavi and Kalai. For years the drama artistes had been meeting only Radharavi and his team alone and the news they had been receiving was only one sided which was from Radharavi and team. Now after Vishal meeting drama artiste Subramani and his team, they have been given an opportunity to know the activities of the SIAA from both Radharavi & team and Vishal & team.
For many years it was Radharavi who had been dominating the SIAA with the support of drama artistes, where Radharavi represented team had been winning the elections. Now, Vishal has started to meet the drama artistes who are members of SIAA and has started to gain support from them.
On 02nd June 2015, Nasser, Vishal, Sarathkumar and Radharavi were called for a meeting with Kalaipuli S.Thanu in the presence of Vikraman, President of Directors Association, ‘FEFSI’ Siva, President of FEFSI to sort out the dispute between the two factions. Sources say that Vishal had showed Thanu, Vikraman and Siva all documentary evidences pertaining to the dispute between them and the SIAA. It is said that all the three, after looking the documentary evidences moved out only with a request not to issue any statement to the media and wait till the election is being completed peacefully.
Sources from many artistes say that the SIAA election planned to take place on July 15, 2015 would be tougher compared to that of the previous elections taken place.
Sarthkumar’s team consisting of Radharavi, Kalai, Vagai Chandrasekar and others are said to contest the elections for the same posts. Nasser. Vishal team has not yet announced their list of candidates. News speculates that Nasser, Vishal team would be revealing their list of candidates within a day or two.
Lets wait till July 15, 2015 to know which team is to take charge of SIAA for the next three year term!