No political vacuum in Tamil Nadu, say AIADMK, DMK

CHENNAI: Ruling AIADMK on Tuesday lambasted superstar Rajinikanth for his assertion that he would provide MGR’s rule in Tamil Nadu, saying he would only join the long list of aspiring politicians who sought to appropriate the matinee idol's legacy but “were lost in the crowd.”

 DMK working president M. K. Stalin also reacted sharply to Rajinikanth's comments that there was “vacuum for good leadership in Tamil Nadu” saying his party would come to power in the state whenever elections to the Assembly are held.

Making his first political speech on Monday after unveiling a statue of MGR at the Dr MGR Institute of Higher Education owned by former AIADMK MP A. C. Shanmugam, Rajinikanth had said he was taking the political plunge to fill the void created due to J. Jayalalithaa's death and age-related illness of DMK chief M. Karunanidhi. 

The star had also attacked politicians who criticised his entry into politics, saying he was forced to enter the arena “as you (politicians) failed in your 
duty.”

Fisheries minister D. Jayakumar termed Rajinikanth's speech “bundle of contradictions” and recalled that many actors including K. Bhagyaraj, who had met the late matinee idol at the Brooklyn Hospital where he was admitted in 1984, had sought to appropriate MGR's legacy, only to fail.

 “Only inheritors of MGR's legacy are the AIADMK and late Amma. Only we can claim MGR's legacy. The AIADMK was founded by our late leader MGR and nurtured by Amma (Jayalalithaa),” he said.

“A sparrow is a sparrow. A kite is a kite. AIADMK is a high-flying kite, and there is no need for it to fear sparrows,” Jayakumar said, attacking Rajinikanth for asking students not to “join politics” at young age wh-ile addressing among 
them.

Opposition DMK asserted there was no political vacuum in Tamil Nadu as remarked by the actor and claimed it will form the next government in the state.

“I don't agree with his remarks that a political vacuum exists in Tamil Nadu. The people of the state will not accept it too. The next government will be that of the DMK. People are ready for that,” Stalin said.