There is a picture of Salman Khan (he is a Bollywood actor, notorious for beating up his girlfriends including Ms World Aishwarya Rai, hunting animals and mowing down people sleeping on footpaths) talking to Congress party’s Unnao candidate in today’s Indian Express.
It repulses me on two accounts.
First, having failed to do much for the state of Uttar Pradesh (where Unnao is), Congress has to fall back on a film star with such maligned credentials. Second, politics in India has become so convoluted that we are compensating our need for leaders and statesmen with filmstars. It is a pathetic irony that ‘real’ social workers for all their flaws go unnoticed while the hits and flops of Bollywood, Tollywood, Mollywood hog attention.
The only thing respectable about the pony-sporting picture of Sallu miya is he has not switched to a khadi pajama kurta avtaar.
The IE article mentions that Shahrukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Govinda and Naghma will also be canvassing for the Congress.
What is Naghma’s claim to fame? If I stretch my memory, I can only recollect a rain song from Yalgaar where she moans and cavorts in Sanjay Dutt’s arms to a sexually explicit song (it happens to be one of my favourites by the way) and ofcourse Ganguly.
Priety Zinta besides doing feel good movies, co-owns an IPL team and is the girl friend of the Wadia scion. Shahrukh Khan is simply King Khan.
Will I vote for Congress just because Shahrukh knocks at my door tomorrow and says pppplsss vote for Congress. Why should I?
Why should I vote for any MLA or MP who has a film star to show off for his or hers five years of work in the constituency?
Congress is not alone in parading film stars at election rallies. The Bachhan family is the star attraction at SP (Samajwadi Party) rallies. As mascots, campaigners and candidates, they have always been exploited for their mass appeal.
Sanjay Dutt , SP’s MP candidate from Lucknow (capital of Uttar Pradesh) is the party’s latest trump card. The man was booked under TADA, has served a considerable jail sentence. If I am not mistaken, he had never set foot in Lucknow earlier.
At the risk of sounding elitist, has an average Indian voter become so dumb that filmstars can be dangled as carrots for votes?
(I read recently that as a sitting Member of Parliament, Govinda did not ask a single question during his tenure as a Congress MP. It is another matter that nor did Mamta di)
You ask me if mafias and criminals can contest why not Sanjay Dutt? Let me give you the stalest of all arguments-for the very reason mafias and gangsters should not.
Why is a clean image and solid credentials no more a criteria for being elected to central and state legislatures in India?
Have we become so inert in our responses that we cannot rise beyond group allegiance and keep such people off our executive institutions? If empowering masses means Dutt, Sallu, Govinda and their ilk stepping up the political ladder then the idea of the people, by the people and by the people needs re-examination.
PS: http://entertainment.oneindia.in/bollywood/features/2009/cine-stars-elections-230309.html
Check this link to know film stars who would be contesting in the elections this time.
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