Even as many Bollywood personalities skipped voting in Mumbai, which recorded 55 per cent turnout, and instead preferred to be away in Florida attending the IIFA ceremony, several other prominent film personalities and corporate bigwigs like cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar, veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan, writer-lyricist Gulzar, RIl chairman Mukesh Ambani, his industrialist-brother Anil Ambani, exercised their franchise enthusiastically on Thursday.
Maharashtra, however, largely showed low turnout in polling. Among other film personalities who turned out to vote were: Dharmendra, Rekha, Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Sunny Deol, Ranbir Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan, actress-wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Arjun Rampal, Ajay Devgn, actress-wife Kajol, Farhan Akhtar, Juhi Chawla, Preity Zinta, Vidya Balan, Ranveer Singh, Madhur Bhandarkar, Sonam Kapoor, Milind Soman and Vikram Gokhale.
Tendulkar, 2014 Bharat Ratna awardee and a Rajya Sabha member, who was in Dubai for the IPl-7 season, made it a point to flew back to Mumbai on his 41st birthday and voted along with his wife Anjali Tendulkar. Soon, he uploaded a selfie on Facebook and sent out a message: “I have voted, have youIJ A wonderful start to my birthday, as a responsible citizen of our great nation”.
Apart from Mukesh Ambani and brother Anil, among other industrialists prominent personalities who voted were: Adi Godrej, Videocon chief Venugopal Dhoot and SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya. “A vote equalizes and unites all of us to build a stronger India.We would become a stronger and greater India,” Mukesh Ambani said. HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh could not exercise his voting right, as his was found missing from the electoral rolls.
Among the film personalities, who were away at Tampa Bay, Florida attending the 15th International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA) ceremony and could not vote, were: Vivek Oberoi Shahid Kapoor, Sonakshi Sinha, Saif Ali Khan, Richa Chadda, Imtiaz Ali, Aditi Rao Hydari, Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar, Shankar Mahadevan and Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra, Malaika Arora Kham and Deepika Padukone.
Aamir Khan, who was accompanied by wife Kiran Rao, said that voting was a very important process of democracy. “It is a very important day for us and as an Indian, it is out duty to vote,” he said.Big-B was accompanied by wife Jaya Bachchan, a Rajya Sabha MP, son Abhishek Bachchan and daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan.Writer-lyricist Gulzar, who was recently conferred the Dadasaheb Phakle award, said that he had a very good feeling. “Youth have come out to vote....it is good,” he said.
Arjun Rampal, who flew down to Mumbai from Dubai to vote, tweeted after exercising his right: “Made it back on time from Dubai to cast my vote. Go Vote and vote right. Every vote counts.”Kirron Kher, who is contesting the lok Sabha polls as a BJP candidate from Chandigarh, tweeted: “Sikander and I just voted. Go Mumbai go and vote.”Actor Ranbir Kapoor, who too voted lamented that it was said that people do not come out and vote. “Today is your day, go out and vote...for the candidate who you feel best...but people do not come out and vote....hope this changes,” he said.