Chennai,
Accusing political parties of “looting” people, Tamil superstar Rajinikanth on Sunday said he will float a new party that will pursue “spiritual politics” and vowed to contest the next Tamil Nadu Assembly election.

After years of will-he-will-he-not uncertainty, the 68-year-old bus conductor-turned-heartthrob of Tamil cinema told cheering supporters here that his decision was a “compulsion of time”.

Alleging that politics in the country had gone “very wrong”, Rajinikanth said in Tamil: “Under the guise of democracy, political parties are looting their own people.” Such a system, he added, needed to be changed.

He said his party which he did not name would not contest the upcoming local body elections but would field candidates in all the 234 Assembly constituencies in 2021. A decision on the 2019 Lok Sabha polls would be taken at an appropriate time, he said.

In a clear attack on the ruling AIADMK, Rajinikanth said the goings-on in Tamil Nadu in the past one year since Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa died in December 2016, leading to splits in the party had made the state a laughing stock.

He urged his legion of fans not to talk about politics or comment about other parties till his party was floated.

Born into a humble Maratha family as Shivaji Rao Gaekwad, Rajini became a bus conductor after doing odd jobs as a coolie and carpenter.

Once he took to filmdom, Tamil Nadu warmly embraced him, never seeing him as an “outsider”. Rajinikanth became an icon in Tamil film industry, his movies running to packed houses. On Sunday, Rajini said his first task would be to get many of his unregistered fan clubs affiliated with the parent body. He underlined that he was not getting into politics for the greed of power. He was not interested in political power at age 45 and, so, there was no question of he having the desire now when he was nearing 70.

For years, Rajinikanth has been asked repeatedly if he would take to politics or not. At one time he supported the Congress but backed out when it aligned with the AIADMK. He then backed a DMK-TMC alliance which won. He also lent support to the Anna Hazare campaign against corruption in 2011.

The winner of several film awards as well as Padma Bhushan (2000) and Padma Vibhushan (2016), Rajinikanth is known for his philanthropic activities and spiritual pursuit. Rajini joins the long list of Tamil actors who have taken to politics.