Thousands of people residing in the rural and sub urban areas of Jharkhand, who get a rare chance to have a glimpse of their reel life heroes and heroines in real life during election rallies appear to be hugely disappointed this general elections as there are virtually no Bollywood stars campaigning in Jharkhand for three tier polls ending on April 24.
Till now no bollywood star has visited Jharkhand except veteran actor Mithun Chakraborty, who came here for a day to campaign for Trinamool Congress candidates in Dhanbad and Ranchi.
Small TV stars like liliput, Duplicate of Amitabh Bachchan and others though, are helping some candidates during their campaigns.
Interestingly, the list of star campaigners for parliamentary elections released by national and regional parties, are also full of political star campaigners than the reel life stars. The Indian National Congress has names of party President Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, party vice-president Rahul Gandhi on the top of the list that includes 40 other national and local Congress leaders.
Similarly, the BJP’s list of 40 star campaigners has veteran leader lK Advani, party president Rajnath Singh and party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on top. Though the list includes names of ‘Dreamgirl’ Hema Malini and Telestar Smriti Irani’s name, they have not come to the state for campaigning and are unlikely to visit before the last round of polls falling on April 24.
The regional parties including Babulal Marandi led Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, Shibu Soren led Jharkhand Mukti Morch and Sudesh Mahto led AJSU party are fighting the elections without star power and their leaders believe that the prominent faces of the parties have more appeal to voters than borrowing glamour from the television industry or the Bollywood.
“There cannot be a star campaigner bigger than our national leaders. We have our prime ministerial candidate (Narendra Modi), who is himself an icon and he has actively participated in political campaigns this election in Jharkhand.
Besides, we have party president Rajnath Singh ji, and leaders like Advani ji campaigning for the party in the State. We believe more than glamour people want change in this election,” said BJP State unit Spokesperson Pradeep Sinha.
When asked about the missing glamour quotient, Congress leader Ajay Rai said that since candidates had not expressed such need so the party could not arrange programmes for Bollywood stars.
He too claimed that the political leaders including Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi campaigning in Jharkhand was more impactful for the party than inviting Bollywood and telestars for the impoverished State.