The furore over actor Mohanlal putting his shoulder to LDF candidate K.B. Ganesh Kumar’s campaign at Pathanapuram is a stark pointer to how Kerala has come around to melding brasstacks politics with tinsel pull.
Fairly inconceivable, even a few years ago.
For many decades, the Malayali had kept his two enduring passions, politics and cinema, zealously apart. Perhaps not anymore.
All three main contenders at Pathanapuram – Jagadeesh of the Congress and Bheeman Raghu of the BJP are the others – are tinsel faces with an assured recall value. The other Mollywood star in the fray, Mukesh, is debuting as CPI(M)’s candidate at Kollam. There are many more doing their bit from the sidelines.
Star quotient
Suresh Gopi, the BJP-nominated new Rajya Sabha member, has been busy giving the party campaign a star quotient. Kaviyur Ponnamma, who had done many of Malayalam moviedom’s favourite mother roles, also campaigns for the BJP. State award-winning actor Priyanka is another movie face on the campaign trail for UDF’s candidate T. Sarath Chandra Prasad at Vamanapuram.
Actors Jayaram and Kottayam Nazeer and music directors Ouseppachan, M. Jayachandran and Ramesh Narayan and scriptwriter T.A. Razak were present in a recent campaign show at Dharmadam, Pinarayi Vijayan’s constituency.
Razak believes its good that more people from cinema are getting into politics. “My political view may be different from that of Suresh Gopi, but he has the right to support a particular party. He does not deserve the sharp criticism he is receiving from some of his colleagues from Malayalam cinema,” said the veteran scriptwriter, who recently turned a director. “Neither do I share Salim Kumar’s view about Mohanlal’s decision to participate in Ganesh Kumar’s campaign. Mohanlal has the right to support Ganesh, even if the latter is contesting against other actors.”
“It is nice that actors like Mukesh have taken the plunge and somebody like KPAC Lalitha was in the race for candidacy,” he said. “A thinking man should have a political view.”
Star advantage
Mukesh said being a star would help one’s campaign only to a certain extent. “After the initial days of my campaign, people ceased to see me as a film star,” he said.
“Now, they see me as one of them. Of course, there is this advantage that people know you because you are a celebrity, but that alone cannot guarantee success.”
He said he had not requested any of his colleagues from films to campaign for him.
“Still, people like actors Innocent, Suraj Venjaramoodu and Pisharadi and director Kamal have joined me in the campaign,” he said. “Actors Dileep and Nadirshah too have told me that they would come.”
