Gimmicks to win Indian elections
- Like
Nehru-Indira, PM Narendra Modi seen
flanked by film-stars
- Southern
Indian States preferred the film
stars as Chief Ministers
Dr.
Hari Desai
The Indian elections are bringing
more and more gimmicks in the campaign instead of debating real issues for the
visionary development of the country and welfare of the people. Not that this
is a new trend. Right from the days the stalwarts of the freedom movement
started disappearing from the political scenario, they were replaced by such
political leaders who merely used the names of the freedom fighters to win the
elections. The political ideologies started vanishing with political workers
deserting their mother organizations with craving to get personal favours or
governmental positions. Using the mass psyche of having free lunches, various
political parties started mushrooming even at regional level, making the major
national parties more and more dependent on them. Barring the Indian National
Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP), other parties, including
the Communists, either lost their national character or got converted into
regional parties forcing the coalitions headed by the major national parties to
toe their line in lieu of their support and sharing power with them.
India has seen the era of the
film stars joining election campaigns. Delivering the filmy dialogs, making an
appeal to voters to vote for the candidates of a particular party, they started
mesmerizing the voters without much of ideological convictions. Prime Ministers
Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, who were often seen flanked by Prithviraj
Kapoor, Raj Kapoor, Nargis and others, had a clout of fans in the world of Hindi cinema i.e. Bollywood. Even Prime
Minister Narendra Modi seems to follow Nehru-Indira in attracting the Bollywood
stars these days.
Gradually, the filmy heroes
and heroines started contesting elections for Lok Sabha or getting nominated to
the Rajya Sabha during Congress era. Later no national party was exception. The
year 1967 and following years saw the film stars and others attached to
regional films becoming the Chief Ministers and calling the shots in the
political scenario in various States. The people of Tamil Nadu followed by
Andhra Pradesh chose to have Superstars or Script writers like M.Karunanidhi,
M.G. Ramchandran (MGR), J. Jayalalithaa and N.T. Rama Rao as their Chief
Ministers when the Congress was losing ground in these southern States. Free or
cheap distribution of rice to TV sets repeatedly made the DMK or AIADMK, both
regional Dravidian parties formed the governments in rotation at St. George Fort
(Madras, now Chennai) and TDP at Hyderabad. Tamil Nadu established a record of
not having any national party in power ever since DMK formed the government
headed by C.N. Annadurai, a journalist-playwright in 1967. MGR was a
Congressman who joined DMK and later established AIADMK. Film star Kama Hassan
has launched his own political party in Tamil Nadu and the Tamil Superstar
Rajnikanth (Shivaji Rao Gaekwad) is in a process of launching party to contest
next Assembly polls.
We can have a long list of
Bollywood (Hindi), Kollywood (Tamil), Tollywood (Bengali, Telugu), Mollywood
(Malayalam), Pollywood (Punjabi) as well as Dhollywood (Gujarati) and Tellywood (Television) stars joining the
Parliament and various State Assemblies. Some of them were nominated to the
Rajya Sabha and others contested the Lok Sabha or Assembly elections. Some
successful, others not so successful and some of them like Amitabh Bachhan even
disillusioned by the politics. Prithviraj Kapoor, Nargis, Jaya
Bhaduri-Bachchan, Rekha, Raj Babbar, Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar, Dara Singh,
Jayalalithaa, Smriti Irani etc. joined the House of elders where as Sunil Dutt,
Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, Shatrugna Sinha, Govinda, Hema Malini, Jaya Prabha,
Kiran Kher, Ramya, Vijay Shanti, Moon Moon Sen, Babul Supriyo, Arvind Trivedi,
Deepika Chikhliya, Paresh Rawal etc., successfully contested the elections for
Lok Sabha. Shatrugna Sinha was Minister in Vajpeyee cabinet and Supriyo, a
celebrated singer, became Minister in Modi Cabinet. Latest entry to politics is
that of Sunny Deol who contests from Punjab where as his step-mother Hema
Malini is contesting from UP. Like Dharmendra’s family, late Gujarati Super
star Upendra Trivedi and his younger brother, Arvind alias Lankesh both joined
politics. Dholiwood superstars, Naresh and his son Hitu Kanodia are elected
Gujarat MLAs where as Naresh’s singer brother was elected as a Member of
Parliament. Some film stars vanish from politics where as others get sustained
for a longer time.
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