Bengaluru: Kannada film superstar Upendra on Saturday announced he was entering politics and would float a new party soon to serve the people without the burden of caste, religion and discrimination.

he 49-year-old Sandalwood hero has created three e-mail IDs to seek ideas and suggestions from the people and their willingness to join him in serving as a ‘worker’ of his would-be party.

“I am starting with an open mind and a clean state, as I want my party to be run by the people for the people to meet their needs and aspirations as an ordinary worker. Politics is about the people, not politicians. For some reason, the system has been corrupted. In a real democracy, people are the kings and ministers are their servants who are paid salaries from the money collected from us as taxes,” said the actor-turned-director, who was wearing a khaki shirt.

Regretting that even after 70 years, political parties play vote bank politics to win elections and spend huge money for public rallies and meetings, he said that sadly, politics in our country relies on mass hysteria, caste, religion, money, fame and popularity to survive or thrive. This needs to be changed.

“I will reveal the name of the party and its symbol after studying the responses from the public by e-mail or in person. We need a ‘Swachh government’ as much as ‘Swachh Bharat’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi being implemented,” he said.