Can top stars make any difference?

Nagpur: It is said that Indians follow two religions, one is cricket and the other is Bollywood. Indeed, some of the icons of these two genres are so adored that they even have temples made in their honour and out of the love that people have for them. And it is this love and adoration that the public entrusts the stars with that our politicians try to bank upon when they bring celebrities to campaign for them.
Even as the beginning of the campaigning for the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections did not see many stars descending in the region, as the campaign period neared its end, parties and candidates started drawing in the celebrities to add a last minute spark.
“This might be what is called the last minute effort. With the spilt in the alliances, the votes are divided and nobody is sure how it is going to turn out. So, the parties and the candidates don’t want to leave anything to chance and will use everything that might help sway the voters to their side,” said Anjali Gaidhane, associate professor and HoD, political science department, Hislop College.
Indeed, as Monday, the last day for campaigning drew closer, newspapers were splashed with ads announcing rallies by stars like Hema Malini, Mohammed Azharuddin, Vivek Oberoi, Manoj Tiwari, Nagma, Sonu Sood, Nishigandha Wad, Sunil Shetty and others across various constituencies in Vidarbha.
While these celebrities do hold a certain charm over the masses, the extent of impact they have on the voter’s decision is only a guess. Experts feel that the impact depends upon various things including who the star is, where he or she is campaigning and what they are saying.
Most of the star rallies seem to be focused on semi-urban and rural areas. “Generally that is the section of society which tends to get more attracted and affected by the presence of these personalities. The presence of celebrities doesn’t have much impact on youngsters and aware urban voters and slowly it is happening in semi urban areas too,” said Ruta Dharmadhikari, associate professor, department of English, LAD College.
Gaidhane too agreed that rural areas had more attraction for celebrities. In fact, Chandrapur saw many of the celebrities mentioned above. “In rural and semi-urban areas the elections still have that festive fervour around them,” she said.
Both, Dharmadhikari and Gaidhane maintained that the presence of these stars hardly had any affect on the aware and politically literate electorate. “During my interaction with my students, I didn’t feel they were swayed by these celebrities. For the past few years, the awareness levels are quite high,” Dharmadhikari said.
While agreeing to this, Gaidhane added that the possible affect of a celebrity presence cannot be ignored totally. “We cannot undermine it as a factor totally. Celebrities, if not turn the voters totally, can at least provide a connecting factor to the candidate. They can be someone for whom masses will turn up and if the celebrity and the candidate say something appealing there are chances that they impact the people,” she said.