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February 19, 1998

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More stars than there are in heaven in AP

Ch Sushil Rao in Hyderabad

Film stars, campaigning for the Telugu Desam Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party in Andhra Pradesh are providing humour, albeit unwittingly, to the electorate.

While the over-exposure of TDP president and Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu has left a sour taste in the mouths of his own partymen -- "He is projecting a larger than life size image of himself," says a disgruntled senior TDP leader -- the 'messages' to vote for one or the other party, from stars of the order of Murali Mohan, Rajendra Prasad, Nutan Prasad, Sharada, Jaya Pradha, Ramya Krishna, Madhoo, and Brahmanandam -- has the electorate giggling.

In one television spot, Brahmanandam describes the Congress as a 'flop', and the BJP as a 'super flop'. What this means to the electorate is debatable -- senior BJP leader V Rama Rao, however, has taken offence at the characterisation.

However, Brahmanandam is markedly reluctant to go out there in the heat and dust and actually campaign for his party of choice, the TDP.

The reason? Well, it could be that when the likes of Murli Mohan went to Kurnool to campaign for the TDP candidate against Kotla Vijayabhaskara Reddy, they were stoned by the public.

Meanwhile, Babu Mohan's campaign for the TDP is even more filmy -- no less than a song and dance sequence, in which he is pictured showering praises, and some flowers, on Chandrababu Naidu. What is amusing viewers -- besides the sheer incongruity of this marriage of filmy gyrations with a political message -- is that Mohan had in fact opposed Naidu at the time of the latter's rebellion against N T Rama Rao, joined the TDP's Lakshmi Parvati faction, and contested twice on the NTR-TDP ticket, first in an assembly by-election, then in the 1996 Lok Sabha election.

He lost both times -- and is now singing the praises of the very leader he had attacked earlier.

Naidu has spared none, not even child stars, in his promotion blitz. Thus, another television spot has Baby Shreshta performing an aarti, complete with flowers, before a huge cut-out of the chief minister -- while the obligatory filmi jingle plays in the background.

More incongruities -- noted playback warblers of the order of S P Balasubramaniam, Mano and 'Vande Mataram' Srinivas, have been exercising their vocal chords to record songs in praise of Naidu. Gives the hearer many a giggle, to hear SPB, whose voice is associated with romantic ditties, warble about developmental programmes.

The Congress which has been left with no 'star support' is banking on the spots which stress the sacrifice of the Nehru-Gandhi family to fetch it votes.

The odd one out, in this clash of celluloid icons, is the Congress -- which apparently failed to persuade any marquee names to throw their weight behind it. So while the BJP and the TDP pit their star casts against one another in increasingly hard-hitting television spots, the Congress focusses on its captive superstar -- Sonia Gandhi.

Elections '98

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