16 May,2014 07:00 PM IST | | PTI
The film fraternity had mixed luck at the hustings with BJP nominees Hema Malini, Kirron Kher and Paresh Rawal, Trinamool's Monmoon Sen and Independent candidate Innocent making their Lok Sabha debut while some like Raj Babbar, Nagma, Gul Panag and Jaya Prada bit the dust.
New Delhi: The film fraternity had mixed luck at the hustings with BJP nominees Hema Malini, Kirron Kher and Paresh Rawal, Trinamool's Monmoon Sen and Independent candidate Innocent making their Lok Sabha debut while some like Raj Babbar, Nagma, Gul Panag and Jaya Prada bit the dust.
Hema Malini. File Pic
Hema Malini, Bollywood's 'Dreamgirl', made the dream debut winning from the Mathura constituency in Uttar Pradesh where a Narendra Modi wave swept the state. The actor, who has been a nominated member of Rajya Sabha, defeated incumbent Jayant Chaudhary of Rashtriya Lok Dal. Veteran actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha of BJP won from Patna Sahib for the fourth time where regional actor Kunal Singh from Congress failed to give a challenge.
Another new celebrity entrant, Paresh Rawal, Bollywood's favourite character actor, won in the East Ahmedabad constituency against his closest rival Himmatsingh Prahladsingh Patel of the Congress. Actor Vinod Khanna, an old BJP faithful, made a comeback by winning against Pratap Singh Bajwa of Congress in Gurdaspur. Khanna had lost the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
Kirron Kher, Bollywood's favourite mother, made an impressive debut from BJP ticket in Chandigarh where she defeated former Railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal of Congress with a margin of 69,642 votes.
Actress Gul Panag, who was also fighting her maiden election from Aam Admi Party, came third. Bhagwant Maan, a stand-up comedian, won in Sangrur defeating his closest rival Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa of Shiromani Akali Dal. Maan's stand-up acts were quite popular in his constituency.
AAP's Javed Jaffrey lost to BJP President Rajnath Singh from Lucknow by a huge margin. TV star-turned-politician Smriti Irani of BJP gave a good fight to Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi in Amethi but was trailing. In Delhi, Bhojpuri singer-actor Manoj Tiwari won the North-East Delhi constituency by defeating his closest rival Anand Kumar of AAP.
However, luck did not smile upon the celebrity contestants fighting from Congress with Raj Babbar (Ghaziabad), Ravi Kishen (Jaunpur), Kunal Singh (Patna Sahib) and Nagma (Meerut) losing their respective constituencies. Bhojpuri superstar Kishan came in the fifth position in UP's Jaunpur district where Kishan Pratap of BJP won while Nagma came fourth in Meerut where Rajendra Agarwal of BJP won.
Veteran actor Raj Babbar came second to former army chief VK Singh of BJP in Ghaziabad.
Director Prakash Jha lost the Lok Sabha elections for the third time in his political career when he was defeated in West Champaran by BJP's Sanjay Jaiswal.
Jha, who had earlier fought from Lok Janashakti Party ticket, jumped into the election battle from JD (U) but 2014 turned out to be third time unlucky for the filmmaker, famed for making political films.
While most of the celebrities fighting on a BJP ticket registered a win it was not the case in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress to electoral victory.
TMC had fielded several Tollywood celebrities and most of them registered victory. Satabdi, a former actress-turned-politician, defeated BJP's celebrity contestant Joy Banerjee in Birbhum while Moon Moon Sen, the daughter of legendary actress Suchitra Sen, won from Bankura.
Former actress and TMC candidate Sandhya Roy defeated Prabodh Pandya of CPI(M) in Medinipur while actor Dev Adhikari the current heartthrob of Bengali cinema and also a TMC nominee, defeated CPI(M)'s Santosh Rana from Ghatal.
'Disco King' Bappi Lahiri, who was fighting his maiden election on a BJP ticket, failed to woo the voters in Srirampur where Kalayan Banerjee of TMC won.
Singer Babul Supriyo was the lucky BJP star candidates in West Bengal to win from Asansol.
In Kerala, famed comedian Innocent defeated Congress' veteran leader P C Chacko. Innocent, the CPI-M backed Independent candidate from Chalakudy constituency, is the first film personality from Kerala to enter the lower house of Parliament.
Unlike actors coming out victorious in other states, Kerala electorate has never sent anyone from the film industry to the Lok Sabha.
Actor-director Mahesh Manjrekar, who started his political innings with Maharashtra Navnirmal Sena, failed to register a win in Mumbai North West where Shiv Sena's Gajanan Chandrakant Kirtikar won.
Bollywood's item girl Rakhi Sawant was also fighting from North-West as an Independent Rashtriya Aam Party candidate.
Jaya Prada, former Samajwadi Party leader who joined Rashtriya Lok Dal, failed to register a win in Bijnaur where Kunwar Bhartendra of BJP won.
In Karnataka's Mandya, C S Puttaraju of Janata Dal (Secular) defeated actress-turned politician Ramya of Congress party.
