Thousands of his supporters had gathered in Chennai’s Valluvar Kottam on Sunday to urge Rajinikanth to reconsider his decision to not enter politics.
A day after thousands of fans and followers organised a protest in Chennai’s Valluvar Kottam demanding that Rajinikanth enter politics, the superstar has requested his fans to not organise any more protests and ask him to reconsider his decision.
In a statement issued on Monday, Rajinikanth expressed his appreciation for having conducted the protest in a peaceful manner. “My heartfelt thanks to those who did not participate in the protest, in line with the leadership request. I have already elaborated on the reasons as to why I am not entering politics now. I have announced my decision. I humbly request you all to not conduct such events and force me to enter politics and cause me pain,” he said, in Tamil. He also mentioned that the fact that several of his followers had participated in the protest against the leadership’s order pained him.
Rajnikanth’s statement came a day after thousands of supporters gathered outside Valluvar Kottam, chanting ‘va Thalaiva va’ and urging the superstar to announce his political entry. The supporters gathered at the spot as early as 7 am, despite the Rajini Makkal Mandram (RMM) asking his supporters not to stage any kinds of demonstrations. In fact, several RMM office bearers from across the state were present at the venue.
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— Rajinikanth (@rajinikanth) January 11, 2021
Rajinikanth had on December 29 announced that he will not be joining politics, three years after he had announced that he will be making his political entry. The superstar was to officially announce the date of the launch of his official party on December 31, 2020, and was to announce the name of his political party in January 2021, months ahead of the Assembly Elections to be held in Tamil Nadu. In fact, early in December, he announced Ra Arjunamurthy and Tamilaruvi Manian as the supervisors to his to-be-launched political party and had issued a clarion call to ‘change everything’. However, on December 29, Rajinikanth announced that he will not be starting a political party and will continue to serve people from the sidelines. He pointed out that his health is not good enough to go to the ground for election campaigning to ensure a victory in the assembly polls.
Also read: ‘Va Thalaiva’: How a large protest was organised to ask Rajini to join politics
Source: The News Minute