Advani, Rajnikant discuss politics

Chennai, Nov 12 (IANS) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president L.K. Advani met Tamil superstar Rajnikant here Wednesday and discussed the political situation in the country, party sources said.

Advani and the actor, known for his pro-rightwing sentiments, did not speak to journalists about their meeting.

Telugu actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi, who recently launched the Praja Rajyam party, had said a few days ago that Rajnikant would join his political initiative.

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The Tamil icon had, however, refrained from comment.

Advani, meanwhile, slammed the central government of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the Tamil Nadu government of the DMK.

'Should these governments that have failed to tackle electricity shortages, inflation and passing the buck to global recession for everything be in power?' he told reporters.

Advani, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha and the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, was here to release the Tamil version of his autobiography 'My Country, My Life'.

Vasanthan Perumal, a columnist in a Tamil political weekly who translated the book, told IANS that he had turned the 'high flown' English text into a flowing Tamil that reads easier.

'I was given complete freedom while rendering the book in Tamil. Though functionaries from the BJP compared my work with the original text in high flown English, since everyone felt that it read easier in Tamil, none of the passages were edited,' Perumal said.

'The book was a revelation because it gave me an insight into undivided India, the pains of partition, the dubious promises to Hindus in what became Pakistan and the camaraderie between Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) functionaries and the Congress during the freedom struggle. Advani emerges as a true statesman through his words,' Perumal added.