Sorry, I will not apologise: Rajinikanth amid Periyar rally remark row

Days after a Dravidian outfit demanded an apology from him for his comments on a rally taken out by social reformer Periyar decades ago, Superstar Rajinikanth on Tuesday asserted that he will neither express regret nor tender an apology and maintained that his remark was factual.

Showing clippings from magazines and newspapers, the top actor said the idols of Lord Ram and Sita were taken out without dress and the deities also featured a garland of sandals in a rally led by late Periyar E V Ramasamy in 1971.

"A controversy has emerged that I said something that did not happen. But I did not say anything that did not occur. I only said what I heard and things that appeared in magazines. Sorry, I will not express regret or apologise," he told reporters outside his Poes Garden residence.

Further, he said, "I did not say anything out of imagination or something that was not there. Lakshmanan (then Jan Sangh and now BJP leader) who took part in a dharna (in 1971) has corroborated it," he said.

On the 1971 rally -in which Hindu deities were allegedly taken out naked- the actor said such things that happened in the past should not be raked up again and again.

"It was not a thing that can be (easily) forgotten but a thing that must be forgotten," he quipped.

On January 14, taking part in an event held here by Tamil magazine 'Thuglak' Rajinikanth alleged: "In 1971, at Salem, Periyar took out a rally in which the undressed images of Lord Sriramachandramoorthy and Sita -with a garland of sandal- featured ...."

A Dravidian outift, Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam, however, accused the actor of "uttering a blatant lie" and demanded his unconditional apology and also filed police complaints seeking action against him.

DVK alleged that the actor uttered a "blatant lie that the images of Lord Ram and Sita were taken nude in a rally, held as part of a superstition eradication conference held in 1971 at Salem.