Bollywood in politics

There's a new star on the political firmament. Actress Dimple Kapadia has taken her first steps in electoral politics by campaigning for the Congress party in Mumbai. She joins an illustrious list of her tinsel town colleagues who have shown more interest in the ballot box rather than the box office in recent past.

Many actors have tried their luck in politics. Actor Sanjay Dutt, who was denied permission by the Supreme Court to contest elections, is the National General Secretary of Samajwadi Party.

Govinda also known as Chi Chi was a politician serving as am MP for the Mumbai North Constituency of Maharashtra. During his tenure he never played any active role and was mostly absent while the House was in session. On January 20, 2008 he decided to quit politics to concentrate on his acting career.

Though Man of the Millennium Amitabh Bachchan left politics long time back, saying he was inadequate for it, his wife Jaya Bachchan is a Rajya Sabha MP from Samajwadi Party.

Jayaprada was initiated into the Telugu Desam Party by her former co-star N.T.Rama Rao in 1994. She later broke away from him and joined the Chandrababu Naidu. She was nominated to the Rajya Sabha representing Andhra Pradesh in 1996. Later she left TDP to join Samajwadi Party and contested from Rampur Parliamentary Constituency in UP and got elected in 2004.

In the previous Lok Sabha election Salman Khan went out of his way and campaigned for both Congress and BJP candidates.

Former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Jayalalithaa also known as Amma was a very popular Tamil film star before her entry into politics.

Bollywood's dreamgirl Hema Malini, joined BJP and became an MP, but she refused to contest for the previous Lok Sabha election.

Hema's husband Dharmendra who was an MP from Bikaner didn’t earn as much accolades in politics as he did in films. The actor was severely criticised for not doing anything for his constituency.

Actor Raj Babbar joined Samajwadi Party and became Member of Parliament of India three times from his native constituency of Agra. Due to open criticism of Amar Singh, Raj Babbar was suspended from the party. Later he joined the Congress Party.

Inspired by Jai Prakash Narayan a respected politician from Bihar, Shatrughan Sinha decided to enter politics. In the mid-1980s, he chose to join the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was then a fledgling party with just two Members of Parliament. Shatrughan Sinha is considered one of the most successful actor politician of India, having made history by being the first member of the film fraternity to become a Cabinet Minister with the Government of India. He has held two portfolios, the Department of Health, and the Department of Shipping. He is still a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party and campaigns for the party all over India and is well known as a leader of the masses and a brilliant orator. Sinha won the Indian general election, 2009 from Patna Saheb in Bihar.

Between 1991 and 1996, Rajesh Khanna was a member of Parliament for the Congress Party, from the New Delhi constituency. He has since been a political activist for the Congress Party.

Sunil Dutt entered politics in 1981 as he became the sheriff of Mumbai that year and stood for Lok Sabha elections in 1984 from Mumbai North-West Constituency.

He won the elections every time he stood from the same constituency including the General Elections in 2004. He was made Union Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs. In 1993, after the communal conflagration in Mumbai following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Sunil Dutt resigned his seat as a Member of Parliament in protest against his party's mishandling of the situation.

In 1997, Vinod Khanna joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and was nominated from Gurdaspur, Punjab in the next year's Lok Sabha poll. He became the Union Minister for Culture and Tourism in July 2002. Six months later he was moved to the more important Ministry of External Affairs as Minister of State. In 2004 he won re-election from Gurdaspur.