The Hindu : A veteran and a newcomer in the fray

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 26, 2004

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National

A veteran and a newcomer in the fray

By Kalpana Sharma

MUMBAI, MARCH 25. In a city whose unique brand is provided by Bollywood, no one is surprised that two Bollywood stars are contesting elections from Mumbai. While the Congress confirmed that film actor Govinda would seek election from Mumbai North against the Union Minister for Petroleum and sitting BJP MP, Ram Naik, a star of yesteryear, Sunil Dutt, who has been a Congress MP from Mumbai North West and is contesting this seat again, scotched rumours that he was unfit and unwell. "I am standing and talking to you," he said. "Those who said that I would be unable to survive another five years in Parliament have done me a favour. Just as the more you melt gold, it becomes better, I too have become stronger."

Both spoke of their commitment to the most needy in their constituencies. Govinda said that he would reach out to the "lowest of the low" and travel by local train and bus during his campaign. Sunil Dutt gave journalists a nine-page résumé listing all the activities he had been involved in apart from films, ranging from working for peace between India and Pakistan and Hindus and Muslims to raising funds for cancer hospitals and providing medical aid to his poorer constituents.

While Govinda faces an opponent who has won five elections from the same constituency, Sunil Dutt has fought four elections from Mumbai North West — 1984,1989,1991 and 1999 — and won all four. Sunil Dutt's main opponent this time will be the Shiv Sena's Sanjay Nirupam. In the two elections that he did not contest, 1996 and 1998, the Sena's Madhukar Sarpotdar was elected. The last time a Congress candidate won from Mumbai North was in 1984.

Asked how he reacted to Govinda, a newcomer to politics, getting the ticket, Sunil Dutt said: "Give him a chance. If his performance is not good, he will know." Sunil Dutt said that he understood the problems of the poor only after he entered politics. He recounted how he had never been inside a slum, or understood the struggle of the urban poor for water and housing. Parliament, he said, would improve with the induction of more people from the film world.

Sunil Dutt was repeatedly asked whether his actor-son Sanjay Dutt, implicated in the 1993 serial Mumbai bomb blasts, would campaign for him. "No member of my family has campaigned for me in the past," he said. Nor would they this time. On Sanjay's proximity to the Sena and his own relationship with the Sena chief, Bal Thackeray, Sunil Dutt, said: " Balasaheb is an old friend. He's so great that he has never asked me to join his party. If I have a family relationship, do I cut it off just because I am in politics?"

When journalists persisted with questions about Sanjay and whether he would campaign for the Sena despite his father being in the Congress, Sunil Dutt snapped: "Sanjay Dutt does not know how to give a statement. If you ask him something, he will say `yes'. He is immersed in his own world. In any case, he is not a child. He is a 40-year-old man."

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