Popular Kannada cine and tele serial actor Malavika joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday to support Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate.
Ms. Malavika quit the Janata Dal (Secular) with which she had been associated for about 20 months and joined the BJP in the presence of State president Pralhad Joshi at the party State office in Bangalore.
Her husband and Kannada cine actor Avinash was present on the occasion. However, Mr. Avinash made it clear that he would not become a member of any political party as he was not a “political person”.
Ms. Malavika said she was joining the BJP in support of Mr. Modi’s leadership and said she wanted to seem him as the Prime Minister of the country.
When she was asked whether she was following in the footsteps of another Kannada actor, Pooja Gandhi, who quit various political parties, she shot back: “Everybody knows that I am different from Ms. Pooja Gandhi. I will be very disappointed if you compare me to her.”