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Kamal Haasan talks of big announcement on birthday, retracts with tweet

Hindustan Times, Chennai | By
Oct 26, 2017 08:50 PM IST

Tamil superstar Kamal Haasan, who has been dropping hints about joining politics, has promised a big announcement on his birthday, November 7, in the popular magazine Ananda Vikatan.

For a few hours on Thursday, it seemed imminent that Tamil superstar Kamal Haasan would announce his intention to join politics on November 7, his birthday. But a tweet in the evening appeared to change all that.

Actor Kamal Haasan has already said “saffron is not his colour”, ruling out possibility of him joining hands with the BJP.(PTI file)
Actor Kamal Haasan has already said “saffron is not his colour”, ruling out possibility of him joining hands with the BJP.(PTI file)

Writing in a Tamil weekly news magazine, Ananda Vikatan, Haasan told his fans to expect a major announcement on his birthday and he would tell them how to work with him and his team.

In a tweet later in the day, though, he seemed to retract from that position. Haasan said meeting fans on his birthday was a routine and regular affair. “I will not be pressurised into forming a party because of media,” he wrote.

The actor and director, who has been dropping very obvious hints about his political foray, has been talking about cleaning up politics in Tamil Nadu, which is still battling political uncertainty after the death of chief minister and ruling AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa in December 2016.

The ruling party has been riven by factionalism and there is a political vacuum in the state.

In the magazine write-up, with a telling headline Mottham Cholligaren, Tayaraagha irangal (Will tell everything, be ready), the 62-year-old said he was looking for people with commitment and responsibility to build Tamil Nadu.

In the last few months, the actor has been vocal in his criticism of the state government and also the Centre and had expressed his views in the magazine and through Twitter.

He has already said “saffron is not his colour”, ruling out possibility of him joining hands with the BJP, which is looking for a toehold in the southern state.

Haasan, who also made a mark in Hindi cinema, met Kerala chief minister and veteran CPI (M) leader Pinarayi Vijayan and declared, “Left leaders are my heroes’’. He has also hosted Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal, a known BJP baiter, for lunch.

Haasan’s write-up appears a day after there was a media frenzy over the possibility of Mersal-star Vijay entering politics. The Mersal star fell foul of the BJP over a dialogue or two mocking the goods and services tax, introduced recently by the Modi government, in his latest film.

BJP Tamil Nadu president Tamilisai Soundararajan and her party colleague H Raja said Vijay’s political ambitions had coloured his “incorrect” statements on GST.

Mersal is playing to full house and has earned around Rs 176 crore at the box office, trade analysts say.

Not just Haasan, his box-office rival, Rajinikanth, too, has been talking politics but Haasan seems to have stolen the march for now.

In Tamil Nadu, cinema has deeply influence politics. Several of the state’s leading politicians have been highly successful actors, film-makers and even dialogue writers.

Jayalalithaa, too, was a popular actor before she turned to politics.

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