Star power works at polls too.
By Tathagata Mitra
BANGALORE: Bollywood and politics have been the two sides of the same coin for a long time. Whether it is Shabana Azmi’s stint in the Rajya Sabha or Amitabh Bachchan’s ties with the Gandhi family and later with Amar Singh of the Samajwadi party, a lot of B-town stars have had very close connection with politics, some even joining it after an acting career.
The Lok Sabha Elections 2014 saw plenty of celebrities of the Hindi and other film industries vie for seats. Some came out victorious while others bit the dust.
BJP’s Kirron Kher made an exemplary debut in Chandigarh where she defeated the former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal by nearly 70,000 votes. Actor Vinod Khanna of the BJP won against Pratap Singh Bajwa of Congress in Gurdaspur. Hema Malini, the ‘dream girl’ of Bollywood, representing BJP, won from Mathura defeating Jayant Chaudhury of Rasthriya Lok Dal. Veteran stage actor and comedian Paresh Rawal bagged the East Ahmedabad seat on behalf of the BJP.
Some others did not fare so well.
Gul Panag, an AAP candidate and a debutant at the elections, came third in her constituency, whereas Javed Jaffrey, the AAP candidate from Lucknow, lost to BJP president Rajnath Singh by a huge margin. Local actor from Bihar and representative of Congress Kunal Singh stood little chance against the seasoned Shatrughan Sinha of BJP. TV star turned politician Smriti Irani gave a very tight competition to the prince of Congress, Rahul Gandhi, for the seat at Amethi.
Other Bollywood candidates from Congress also did not fare so well: Raj Babbar (Ghaziabad), Ravi Kishan (Jaunpur) and Nagma (Meerut) were unsuccessful in bagging seats from their respective constituencies.
In West Bengal actors like Dev and Moon Moon Sen without having any background in politics whatsoever have managed to procure seats for Trinamool Congress at the Lok Sabha. TMC won 34 out of the 42 seats in that state.