Yes! The electoral process is back in action. General Elections 2014: Here they come. Newspapers daily talk about NaMo, RaGa, Kejriwal, BJP, Congress etc. So, much has already been talked about. Let us talk about the counterpart ‘BOLLYWOOD’. Politics and Bollywood are two things that never go out of the repartee circuit. The two complete the gossip columns of Page 3.
There has never been any dearth of people coming from the entertainment industry to join the second biggest entertainment industry ‘POLITICS’. The first film actor in India to become the Chief Minister in 1977 was MGR. Some well-known names of our times are Jaya Bachhan, Shatrugan Sinha, Raj Babbar, Govinda, Vinod Khanna , Shabana Azmi, Hema Malini , Late Sunil Dutt and the list is endless. Some of them have been quite successful, too. Jayalalitha’s decision to give up acting took her to the top-most position of the state and if the things go right, she might be on the top-most position of the country too! Of course, the article would not be complete without mentioning Ms. Rakhi Sawant who now wants to be an active politician.
An actor and a politician have a few things in common. Both of them need to know how to manipulate. Now days, political parties welcome the glamour factor with open arms. They want their popularity and reputation to mobilise the vote banks for them. What all these performers have to do is, get on the stage with their scripts, and prove to all the capabilities they possess. For the actors it happens to be a second innings of their career, be in public eye, status and yes, some power and contacts too. What else you need when you are done with your acting career (no offence to anyone : P).
However, does being a good actor qualify one to be a good politician? Keeping aside the glamour quotient for a minute, are they able to serve people, as an elected MP or MLA should? How many of them have opened up their mouths in parliament for their people? Here, the fact that a stupendous and marvellous actor like Amitabh Bachhan could not give a blockbuster on the political front needs to be reminded .We do not see many of them coming to the constituencies and getting to know the ground reality. Statistics show that sparing a few, most of them have not turned up to the expectations of the voters. If ‘onscreen persona’ still happens to be a decisive factor to vote, then it is a sorry state for country’s politics.
Mr. Shatrugan Sinha offers a simpler explanation: “Glamour has limited power, whereas power has unlimited glamour.” Let me not comment on what their job is. All they should remember is, people do not want a superstar, they want a leader, a representative who has the time to talk about their crises and problems.
