Rajinikaanth, Kamal Haasan popular film stars, but ‘marginal players’ in politics: Mani Shankar Aiyar

NEW DELHI: Describing Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan as “marginal political players”, senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar has said they remain very popular film stars but are unable to attract public opinion to their point of view in political terms.
Aiyar, who has been named in three key panels set up by the Congress for Tamil Nadu polls, asserted that superstar Rajinikanth’s decision that he will not enter electoral politics will not make a tinker’s difference as the state readies for the assembly polls.
“When he (Rajinikanth) said he was going to come into politics, I said it is not going to make a tinker’s difference, now that he has decided not to come into politics, I repeat what I said, it is not going to make a tinker’s difference,” Aiyar told PTI in an interview.
“Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth are not anything but marginal political players,” the former Union minister said.
It was different in the old days when people like M G Ramachandran (MGR), Sivaji Ganesan and even Jayalalithaa were involved in films that carried a revolutionary social message, he said.
Noting that former Tamil Nadu Chief Ministers M Karunanidhi and C N Annadurai were also deeply involved in cinema, he said the powerful scripts written by Annadurai and extremely powerful dialogues by Karunanidhi that were delivered magnificently by MGR resulted in films in Tamil cinema having in the 1950s the same role as social media is today having in determining the politics of northern India.
“Since these two (Rajinikanth and Haasan) have never used cinema as a medium for a political message, they remain what they are — very very popular film stars, but not people who attract public opinion to their point of view in political terms,” Aiyar said. —PTI

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