NEW DELHI: A big star of India’s Tamil-language movies, Rajinikanth, said on Sunday he is launching a political party, adding drama to a heated political scene in a state with a history of film stars becoming chief ministers. Tamil Nadu, which accounts for the bulk of India’s automobile exports, has been in political limbo since the death of Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa in December 2016. Rajinikanth, called the “superstar” by his fans, enters the political scene at a time Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party is looking to make inroads into the southern state that’s been ruled by two south Indian parties for decades. Over the past five decades, Tamil Nadu has chosen between the two Dravidian parties, both of which claim anti-caste social justice and secularism as their core ideology. Tamil Nadu, a state of more than 70 million people, is sometimes called the “Detroit of Asia”.

Source: Pakistan Today December 31, 2017 06:11 UTC