Glam brigade hits the poll trail

BHUBANESWAR: Political parties have added the glam quotient to their campaigning to woo the electorate. They have brought in popular Oriya and Hindi film and tele stars to shine during their election rallies.
Actors Hema Malini and Shatrughan Sinha are campaigning for BJP. They asked people to bring the party to power at the national-level and make L K Advani the prime minister.BJP has also roped in model-turned-actor Kunal Kapoor and Gajendra Singh of Mahabharat fame and they will be campaigning in the next few days. "Every star has a following and can bring in crowds. It helps the local leader immensely as they get a bigger crowd for them," BJP spokesperson Jatin Mohanty said.
Congress nominees, on their part, are depending on Ashrani and Shakti Kapoor and popular Oriya film actor Aparajita Mohanty. Ashrani and Shakti Kapoor campaigned in Jharsuguda some days ago. The national party brought in actor Rachna Banerjee to campaign against her ex-husband and Oriya superstar Siddhant Mohapatra. Many members of the Oriya film industry held road shows for Mohapatra, who is the BJD candidate for Berhampur Lok Sabha constituency.
Even Independent candidates are bringing in stars to campaign for them.
Popular Hindi actors like Sunil Shetty and Raveena Tandon are slated to campaign for an Independent candidate in Champua constituency. "They are my friends and they know I have been working for the people for many years so they will come here to campaign for me," independent candidate Jitu Patnaik said. Patnaik has been in active politics for the last three decades.
But many politicians feel that though glamour might not really fetch him votes, it has at least infused some life into the otherwise insipid campaigning here. "Our candidates managed to get some artists in their campaigning which definitely helped them in attracting more crowd to the meetings but our party has not roped in any actor so far," Congress spokesperson Arya Kumar Janendra said.