Will launch party for sure, says Rajini

Tamil superstar Rajinikanth on Monday said he was firm on his decision to launch a political party, but refused to give a time-frame for a formal launch.

In a brief interaction with the media before he was to leave for the US on a personal visit, the actor demanded “strictest possible punishment” for Professor Nirmala Devi, who was reportedly lured four girl students to give sexual favours to a top official, if she is found guilty and condemned his colleague S Ve Shekhar's act of sharing a Facebook post that had derogatory references to women journalists.

“I am firm on my decision to launch a political party and there is no way that I will go back on it. But, I cannot give a time-frame for launching the party.Lots of planning is going into the launch of the party and I will announce the date to the media,” he said.

Rajinikanth also stuck to his comments that the worst form of violence was attacking policemen on duty despite all-round criticism against his statement.

He also said criticism was inevitable in public life when sought his reaction on his former co-stars and directors training their guns on his political ideology.

“You just can't avoid criticism in public life. I am ready to be criticised,” he said.

The actor also made light of RSS ideologue S Gurumurthy meeting him on Monday, saying such meetings happen regularly and there was nothing unusual about it.

Rajinikanth had on December 31 last year announced that he will launch his political party to contest the next Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.