Three days back, there were reports in the media quoting Kamal Haasan that he lashed out at Tamil Nadu government for their lethargic relief measures to the flood-hit victims of Chennai. The reports also added that Kamal Haasan questioned the utilization of tax payers’ money. Yesterday, O Panneerselvam, finance minister of Tamil Nadu, slammed Kamal Haasan for his criticism on state government and made a sharp rebuttal in his statement.
Now, Kamal Haasan has refuted making controversial comments on state government in his official statement. “The reports doing rounds as I questioned the use of tax payers’ money are not from any exclusive interviews given by me. Those were comments from a mail I sent to one of my North Indian journalist friends. It was an emotional outburst at the devastated situation of my state. An approximate translation of my e-mail is what you have been seing in the media. I never mentioned anything about Tamil Nadu state government and tax payers’ money in the mail,” says Kamal Haasan.
“There has been no distribution of newspapers too to my home. Thanks to the occasionally active mobile and internet connections, few of my friends intimated me about the matter. I realize that making a decision to stay silent for the issue to get sorted out is a mistake. I was so engaged in co-ordinating the relief measures with my fans and wanted to resolve this later. But this has been blown out of proportion now. This is not a counter statement to O Panneer Selvam. My fans have been doing welfare activities for the past 36 years without any entitlement to political parties. If at all the alleged comments quoting me have hurt anyone, I apologize,” Kamal added.