Politically actors have been big drawing factor in South Indian regions. Majorly, Tamil Nadu has been ruled by leaders who come from Film or Theater background ever since, Anna Durai’s Dravida Khazagam came into power. MG Ramachandran and Karunanidhi turned from friends to foes after Anna Durai’s death due to political power related ego clashes. They both hail from Film and Theatre background.
As they both spilt DMK gave rise AIADMK party in the state. MGR came into power and never lost an election. After his death, Jayalalitha after few struggles took over the reins of AIADMK and she was an actress too. Until her death, she continued to be a prominent figure in Indian National Politics too.
But actors who entered into politics after her like Vijaykanth, after initial success did not repeat the same magic in elections. Sarath kumar, Khusubu haven’t been consistent in winning in elections too. Still, the ground is different for a superstar like Rajnikanth and a legendary hero like Kamal Hassan.
Rajnikanth gave up on the idea of entering into politics and Kamal Hassan couldn’t win as MLA. Interestingly, similar results have been seen in Telugu state Andhra Pradesh also. NTR took inspiration from MGR and changed politics in United Andhra Pradesh with Telugu Desam. Since then, many number of Telugu stars including Superstar Krishna, Megastar Chiranjeevi tried but couldn’t succeed in politics.
Chiranjeevi won as an MLA in Tirupathi but he went to Parliament as an MP through Rajya Sabha and later quit politics after merging his own party PRP into Congress. Pawan Kalyan’s entry into politics in 2014 caused a big stir but in 2019, his party lost in all seats it contested except one. He did not win as MLA too.
People of South India seems to have out grown from film glamour when it comes to politics. May be actors might have to look at politics as full time duty to make an impression from now on.
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