Chennai : President of Mint-fresh political party, Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), Kamal Haasan began on a defensive note after launching his party with great fanfare at a rally in Madurai last night. On Thursday, Kamal Haasan was on the backfoot clarifying his comment on saffron saying that he never meant to insult saffron colour that forms significant part of the national flag.

Writing in his column in Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan, the actor turned politician said saffron signified sacrifice and his only contentionwas that saffron should spread all over the flag.

While he seems to refer Hindutuva and BJP in an indirect manner referring to spread of saffron across the tricolour, the saffron band in the Indian national flag actually signifies `courage and sacrifice’.

He said while several leaders who fought for freedom had differed from each other but had stood united and fought for the same goal. He said for the success of Indian democracy one cannot forget the contributions of B.R.Ambedkar and Alladi Krishnaswamy Iyer in drafting our Constitution.

For himself, Kamal Haasan said, he would not like to be confined to any ism and said he was for all sections of the society cutting across, religion, region, faith and caste.

“All `isms’ are for social reform. And it cannot be said all have succeeded. It cannot be agreed that a book written in some corner of the world will suit the whole world,” Kamal said.

One cannot equate Socrates democracy with that of (American President Donald) Trump’s democracy as that is a different creature and this is a different animal, Kamal Haasan said.

Kamal also said he met fellow actor Rajinikanth secretly near here-at the later’s Kala movie shoot- and told him about his plans to float a political party.

Kamal Haasan’s stand on corruption had a plethora of questions directed at him to come clean on the costs of the party launch function and as to who paid the money for that and how.