New Delhi, May 16: Innocent and Paresh Rawal, who are now new MPs, may be from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum, but the two actors have a common thread. Rawal, a BJP parliamentarian from the Ahmedabad East seat in Gujarat, enacted a number of roles in Hindi films that were first immortalised in Malayalam films by Innocent, a Left-backed MP from Chalakuddy in Kerala.
Rawal, a favourite of Malayalam director Priyadarshan, had given life to at least five characters Innocent portrayed in blockbuster films, when they were remade in Hindi in the 2000s. Innocent's role in 1993’s “Manichitrathazhu”, which won actor Sobhana a national award, was enacted by Rawal in the Hindi remake “Bhool Bhulaiya” to peels of laughter in movie theatres. Rawal also essayed Innocent's roles in “Hera Pheri”, “Mera Baap, Pehle Aap”, “Bhagam Bhaag”, “Chupke Chupke” and “Hulchul”.
The Malayalam actor, who recently fought a tough battle against cancer, defeated senior Congress MP P C Chacko by over 14,000 votes; while Rawal, a candidate hand-picked by Narendra Modi himself, won by a margin of over 2.5 lakh.Innocent and Rawal are not the only ones artiste-turned-MPs. West Bengal, too, is sending a number of actors and singers to Parliament this time.
Tollywood superstar Deepak Adhikari aka Dev, Moon Moon Sen, Shatabdi Roy, Sandhya Roy and Tapash Paul – all Trinamool Congress candidates – and singer Babul Supriyo of the BJP, found places in the Parliament from West Bengal.
TMC candidate in South Delhi Biswajeet Chatterjee, however, lost miserably managing to garner only 846 votes.
BJP’s Shatrughan Sinha was another prominent actor to win from Bihar’s Patna Saheb constituency, while director Prakash Jha of the JD-U lost from Paschim Champaran.
In Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura constituency, renowned dancer Hema Malini of the BJP trounced sitting MP Jayant Choudhary, son of RLD chief Ajit Singh. In Chandigarh, BJP’s Kirron Kher overcame the challenge of AAP’s Gul Panag in Chandigarh.
Yesteryear’s heart-throb Vinod Khanna also won the BJP a seat from Gurdaspur in Punjab, while Manoj Tewari brought the party victory from the North-East Delhi seat.
Besides Gul Panag, the stars who found themselves on the losing end were Congress’ Ramya from Mandya in Karnataka and RLD’s Jayaprada from Bijnore in Rajasthan.
AAP’s Javed Jafferi from Lucknow, Congress’ Vijayshanti from Medak and Nagma from Meerut also failed to sway voters and get seats.
Among sports persons, Olympian-shooter Rajyavardhan Rathore trounced Congress’ C P Joshi by a margin of around 3.20 lakh votes in Jaipur Rural, while others were not as lucky. Footballer Baichung Bhutia of the TMC lost by a margin of around 1.75 lakh to BJP’s S S Alhuwaliah in Darjeeling.
Cricketer Mohammed Kaif, the Congress candidate from Phulpur, a seat represented by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, managed to get only around 32,000 votes. BJP candidate K P Maurya, who won the seat, polled ten times more votes than Kaif.
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