The MNM chief, actor Kamal Haasan, said that he sat on the laps of late chief minister MG Ramachandran and the legendary Tamil actor of yore Sivaji Ganesan as a child, and yet he never took advantage of that, in an apparent dig at actor-politician Vijay’s attempts to portray himself as the “successor of MGR”.
Haasan was campaigning for DMK’s Tiruchirapalli East constituency candidate, Inigo S Irudayaraj, on the night of April 20. Along with Irudyaraj, Haasan led a rally through Tiruchirapalli, urging people to vote for ‘Rising Sun,’ DMK’s poll symbol. Incidentally, Vijay will also be contesting from Tiruchirapalli East.
“Like the other candidate here (referring to Vijay), I too joined the cinema at a very young age and know all the stars, but never exploited that. I used to sit on the laps of MGR and Shivaji (Ganesan); I did not take advantage of that. In fact, MGR liked me a lot,” Haasan explained further.
When Vijay had come for campaigning here recently, he had stopped at the MGR statue for a photo-op.
Referring to the idea that Vijay pulls crowds wherever he has gone, Haasan said, “We held a massive gathering in Coimbatore, where 1.5 lakh people marched”.