Ballot outshines stars

OBVIOUSLY, a star-studded affair. The election of office-bearers of the South India Artistes Association had all the ingredients of a pot-boiler.

Picture this: two heroes - Vijaykanth and Sarathkumar - are the first to cast the votes, by eight in the morning. And there is past-president and onscreen baddie Radha Ravi sporting dark glasses, dressed in white, with his dhoti well folded, wielding a cell-phone as he issues instructions.

Incidentally, the past-president is contesting to be a committee member, with his loyalist K.N. Kaalai well-pitted against director Visu for the post of the treasurer.

The action started a week before. The screen-villain had styled a `Vijaykanth team' for the elections, evoking protests from the rebel group - S.Ve. Shekhar, Visu and Co. - challenging this

The police, on Sunday, did not want to take any chances. Bandobust was intense all along the road, and supporters were shooed away.

Glamour and style was in the air - be it `Neelambari' Ramya Krishnan sporting coolers with her denim shirt, Karthik with his dark-glasses, beard and blue-cap, Arjun with a Coke-red T-shirt contrasted by his shirt, or Livingston in shorts.

Stars kept pouring in - in Ford Escorts, Opel Astras, Mercedes Benz, Tata Safaris and the like. And, superstar Rajnikant, sporting his usual white-and-white kurta-pyjama, stepped out of a white Ambassador as he made his way to cast his vote. He got done with it in two minutes, waved at the crowd that cheered, and made a quick exit. Later in the afternoon, it was the turn of the debonair Kamal Hassan in tees and cargos to make a `cameo appearance'.

All the stars got done with their voting in minutes, only those still down the popularity ladder had a long wait in the queue, roughly about 1500 of them!

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Section  : Entertainment
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