Ravindra Shyamnarayan Shukla’s favourite appeal on the campaign trail is ‘kapaal chuyi la’ (touch my head), and almost every time that happens, he turns around to his team and beams: “Now that vote is ours”. His team nudges him not to make that appeal, symbolic of blessings given by elders, to those who are visibly younger than him. So, next stop onwards, he resorts to giving the young ones autographs on notebooks, upturned palms and even school shirts.
Better known by his screen name Ravi Kishan, Shukla is fighting a prestige battle for the Bharatiya Janata Party from Gorakhpur—a seat that had been won five times by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath but lost upon his resignation. Now Shukla, a self-proclaimed veteran who had acted in 600 films (of which the bulk have been in Bhojpuri), is hoping the gesture of blessing will translate into a dream electoral win.
His electoral initiation though was anything but pleasant. In 2014, Shukla fought the Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket from Jaunpur and came in third with slightly over 42,000 votes. But he insists this time he has found his calling and his party. “I was shooting in Kochi when I got a call from Yogi ji asking if I was ready to serve the people. I am a priest’s son, how could I have said no? I did not even go home after that call,” claims the 51-year-old.
Despite being a quintessential film star on the campaign trail—puffing his hair and sucking-in his cheeks every time a camera or phone is pointed at him—Shukla says he is serious about his political career. “I have seen people jumping into wells and killing themselves after M.G. Ramachandran’s death. He was not just a great film star, he was an outstanding political leader,” he says elaborating (and obviously exaggerating) the kind of mass appeal he hopes to create. He also attempts to draw parallels with Narendra Modi’s earlier years of financial hardship. “I sold newspapers to get my mother a new saree”, he says. Shukla’s plans for his constituency include ‘a Ramoji-like film city’ so that job opportunities can be created, and keep migration checked.
Job opportunities are also among the top priorities for Poonam Shatrughan Sinha (68) who has been fielded by the Samajwadi Party as its candidate (in alliance with the Bahujan Samajwadi Party) from Lucknow to take on Home Minister Rajnath Singh. Till not too long ago, Sinha (along with husband Shatrughan) was a part of the BJP. Sinha joining the SP and the announcement of her candidature might have been sudden, but the gentle voiced Sinha insists the party had been in talks with her for some months. “The kind of respect and the gracious invitation I got is not something I could have expected from the BJP,” says Sinha.
Sinha says the BJP have become the kind of party that is no longer recognisable to her. “We joined the party when it had just two people. We went on to further their numbers. My husband was a star campaigner and a serious politician. The BJP never had the kind of culture that has been displayed in the last five years. We don’t want to be with a leader who thinks he can do anything just because he is in power,” says Sinha, who holds a graduate degree in political science.
Sinha, who holds assets worth more Rs 193 crores, is the richest candidate in her phase of polling, is appealing to the city’s syncretic traditions. She insists that she will prove to be the exception to the rule of Lucknow being a BJP seat. “I am banking on the mood of the people. People tell me 'hum aapko jitayenge aur Yogi ko bhagayenge' (we will make you win and make Yogi run). There is a fervor for change,” she claims.
As a film producer, Sinha has seen for herself how the lack of jobs in the city drives many of its young to seek opportunities in the Hindi film industry in Mumbai. She claims to have read reports about the city’s appalling pollution levels in the newspapers and met acid attack victims—all the issues she has prioritized on her agenda. “So much of the good done by the Samajwadi Party government has been undone. I am meeting delegations of people across boundaries who are unhappy,” she says promising to be a representative who is approachable and available.
Unlike Sinha’s flamboyant drive for votes, which has included a visit from her actress daughter Sonakshi, Girish Narain Pande (64) has trotted through Lucknow in an e-rickshaw in a campaign driven by donations from well-wishers and friends. Pande, a retired officer of the Indian Revenue Services, is fighting the election as a candidate from the Sarvodaya Bharat Party (SBP), an outfit registered in 2016. The party was an offshoot of what Pande dubs as a ‘crusade’ to encourage people to know the Constitution of India.
“The first fundamental duty listed in the Constitution is to abide by it and respect its ideals. But how does one become a citizen when one does not even know the Constitution? It’s the first law of the land from which all other laws flow. It bears the aspirations and dreams of those who fought for our freedom,” says Pande whose unusual campaign involves distributing copies of an 80-page Hindi book titled ‘Jago Ganrajya, Jago’ (Awake Republic). The book, an engaging read on the Indian Constitution, explained with anecdotes and news, unlike usual campaign material, evokes surprise among its recipients.
Pande’s party fought the 2017 Vidhan Sabha polls in the state with 11 candidates who polled 1,000 votes among them. This year the party has fielded eight candidates across six states. If he were to win, Pande says he will take into consideration the losing party’s candidates’ opinions on how the MP Local Area Development Fund (MPLAD) should be spent. Despite the high-profile nature of the constituency, Pande has run a quiet campaign and says that he gets back home every evening to coach his son for taking the engineering entrance exam.
Dinesh Lal Yadav, however, has had no moment of pause in his high decibel campaign in Azamgarh where he is taking on the SP president Akhilesh Yadav on behalf of the BJP. The former is a singer and film star of big repute in the Bhojpuri film industry and his credits include movies called ‘Nirahua Chalal Sasural’ and ‘Nirhaua Rickshawala’ (Nirhaua goes to his in-laws and Nirahua, the rickshaw puller) that bank on his screen name. The opposition has dismissed him as a ‘gavaiya’ (singer).
Yadav (40) is a much in-demand star BJP campaigner. One evening, after returning from Amethi, he stands atop a yellow tractor and asks the gathered crowd, “Do you think Rahul Gandhi has it in him to be prime minister?” As the crowd roars back a no, Yadav speaks about the need to tackle terrorism and end the politics of nepotism which he says is what his opponent ‘bade bhaiya’ (elder brother) represents.
Later, a hoarse voiced Yadav told THE WEEK that politics was never a part of his larger plan. “I was shooting a song with Amitabh Bachchan, in the nature of a dialogue between a father and a son on the pitfalls of joining politics. Bachchan ji told me how he had disregarded his father’s opinion and done so to face disastrous consequences.”
But then the pull of Azamgarh, where he claims to have shot eight films, helped him tide over any misgivings. “Azamgarh made me a star. Now I am here to work for Azamgarh”, he says.
“Politics in eastern UP is rife with casteism and nepotism. This is the biggest poison for democracy, and I am here to end that,” he says. He lists better roads and a university among his plans for the constituency. “I will ask the people what their problems are. I will live here even if I lose. I am 100 per cent here for the long term,” he says, though there are no plans to give up movies. “On demand from fans all over the world,” he explains.
Yadav believes that film stars were earlier roped in to draw the crowds for political leaders, however, now they have supplanted the latter as they can speak and explain policy matters equally well.
Malkhan Singh Rajpoot (70), a former dacoit is hoping to use his experiences to fight for the land rights of his constituents on a ticket from the Pragatishil Samajwadi Party (led by Mulayam Singh Yadav’s brother Shivpal). “I became an outlaw because the land of the poor was usurped by the rich, high castes. With me as MP, no one dare grab anyone’s lands,” says the man with a lush moustache and long hair.
Once a legend in the ravines of Madhya Pradesh, Rajpoot surrendered before the then chief minister Arjun Singh in 1982 in a highly publicized ceremony. In the past, he has campaigned for the BJP and for Jitin Prasada of the Congress, who is now his main opponent in Dhaurahra.