Say no to politics: Chiranjeevi tells Kamal, Rajini

Kamal Hassan is already in politics having launched his party, Makkal Needhi Maiam, and Rajinikanth is ready for the plunge. But the duo’s common friend in the tinsel town, Telugu film icon K Chiranjeevi, who had a shot in politics, feels “politics is not worth it” as it is all about money and not good intention.

Chiranjeevi, the Mega Star of the Telugu cinema who couldn’t replicate his tinsel town success in the rough and tumble of politics, poured his heart out on politics, his experiment with electoral politics and how the political landscape in the country has seen a dramatic change in an interview with a popular Tamil weekly.

While maintaining “It’s (politics) is not worth it”, Chiranjeevi, however, left the decision to the Kamal-Rajini duo.

“My only advice to Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth is only one: no politics. It is not worth it. But despite all challenges, defeat, disappointment and bad names, if you still feel the urge to do good to the people, then come to politics. Be brave, once day you can own the time,” the 64-year-old actor told Ananda Vikatan in an elaborate interview.

Kamal’s MNM had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and polled nearly 4 per cent of votes, while Rajinikanth is yet to launch his political party. The actor has promised to contest the 2021 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.

Recalling his journey in politics, Chiranjeevi said he had quit cinema to take a plunge in politics with the hope of bringing change in people’s lives. “Politics is all about money now. We come into politics with lot of hope, but they spent crores of rupees to defeat me in the (2009) elections. I was upset and the same happened to my brother too,” Chiranjeevi said.

He also said politics was not suitable for “emotional people” like him and expressed the hope that Kamal and Rajini would not be emotional like him.

Chiranjeevi took a plunge in politics in 2008 by launching ‘Praja Rajyam’ at the pinnacle of his glory in Andhra Pradesh, but his party won just 18 out of the 294 assembly constituencies in the state.

With his experiment floundering, Chiranjeevi merged his party with the Congress and became a Union Minister but he bid a goodbye to politics after the national party became almost non-existent in the residual state of Andhra Pradesh after it was divided to create a new state of Telangana.