india

Updated: Feb 17, 2019 22:38 IST

Hours after Tamil superstar Rajinikanth announced that he would neither contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections nor support any party, his celluloid rival and founder of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), Kamal Haasan criticised him saying people will not respect someone who announced his political entry but was not ready to face the elections.

“As I have entered politics, I cannot avoid elections. It may be either a Lok Sabha or a state assembly election. As a political party, we should face elections. If we say that we will see in the next elections, then people will not respect,” he said at private function after deciding to contest all the 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and one in Puducherry.,

“After tabling a banana leaf we cannot avoid eating the food.”

Rajinikanth had announced his political entry on December 31, 2017. The actor converted his Rajini Fans Association into Rajini Makkal Mandram (RMM), an outfit which is likely to be converted as a political party.

But RMM workers say that their target is Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly elections.

“In order to know the RMM workers’ association, Rajini conducted RMM district secretaries meeting on Sunday. We gave our suggestions and jointly decided to skip the Lok Sabha elections 2019,” said AJ Stalin, Thoothukkudi district secretary, RMM.

Kamal Haasan also took a swipe at DMK president M K Stalin and alleged that the opposition party has copied Gram Sabha (Village body) meetings from his party. “Are they (DMK) not ashamed of copying our acts? Grama Sabha meetings are the very old thing. However, when our one-year-old party has taken that, the age-old party (DMK) had copied that,” the actor-turned politician said.

The 65-year-old actor also ticked off Stalin for wearing a torn shirt once.

“If my shirt was torn in the Assembly, I will not come with the torn shirt. Definitely, I will purchase a new one before coming out,” the MNM leader said.

The reference was to the fracas during the vote of confidence of for chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami on February 17, 2018 when Stalin came out of the assembly with an unbuttoned and torn shirt and alleged that he was manhandled by the police.

Stalin’s son and actor Udhayanidhi Stalin hit back at Kamal Hassan’s allegations of copying his Gram Sabha plans and said that DMK has been conducting it for the past 25 years.

“Kamal’s statement shows his ignorance, “said Udhayanidhi.