Karnataka polls: Parties hitch their campaign wagons to stars this poll season

BENGALURU: Stars have been descending on the RR Nagar assembly constituency of late. Conspicuously, actors haven’t been invited to campaign in Sira constituency till now. Both go to the polls on November 3. However, netas are not inclined to bring in many stars to avoid crowds due to the pandemic.

BJP candidate from RR Nagar Munirathna himself is a known Kannada film producer. While on Tuesday, actor Shruthi campaigned for him, on Wednesday, it was the turn of actor-turned politician Kushboo Sundar who recently joined the BJP. Kushboo participated in a roadshow at Laggere. Actor Darshan, who is also a resident of RR Nagar, will soon campaign for Munirathna.

RR Nagar is dotted with actors’ residences. Malavika Avinash and Ganesh are among the stars who reside here. Malavika and Ganesh’s wife Shilpa are BJP members. Not just the BJP, even the Congress is looking at star power. KPCC president D K Shivakumar has met a  few Kannada actors, including Nenapirali Prem and Vinod Prabhakar, and sought their help.

Sources from the KPCC office said that this time they did not invite many actors for campaigning. “We are aware that if we invite stars, crowd management will be difficult.  As per the guidelines of the Election Commission of India, assembling of more people is not advisable,’’ the sources said. Of the Big 3, JDS has not approached any film personality so far. Former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy’s son,  Nikhil Kumaraswamy, who is an actor, participated in a roadshow on Tuesday. Kumaraswamy himself is a film producer.

Interestingly, none of the political parties have invited Sandalwood stars to campaign for their candidates in Sira. A senior BJP leader, who didn’t wish to be named, said each constituency was different. “In RR Nagar, our party candidate Munirathna has a film background and was an MLA earlier. Whereas in Sira, our candidate Dr Rajesh Gowda is from the medical field and is not a known person. We need to push him, inviting film stars will not work for him as he is a first-timer. There we need our party leaders who can direct him during the campaigning,’’ the leader said.