Hours later, Doubting Thomases were given a befitting reply on at least one count. Incontrovertible proof was offered on why…
On Tuesday, it was announced that Roopa Ganguly, who played Draupadi in the Mahabharat serial that transformed Indian Sundays in the 1980s, had been nominated to the Rajya Sabha . As in the epic, her rise has ignited extreme reactions in the Bengal BJP but she has powerful backers in New Delhi as well as in Nagpur. Ganguly, who heads the BJP women’s wing in Bengal, is stepping into a landscape through which has flashed faces from the Mahabharat cast. It’s time for a flashback:
Nitish Bharadwaj
Serial role: Lord Krishna, the charioteer and strategist with the disarming smile
Political role: Won the Jamshedpur Lok Sabha seat on a BJP ticket in 1996. Lost in 1999 to Digvijaya Singh’s brother from Rajgarh, Madhya Pradesh
Gajendra Chauhan
Serial role: Yudhisthir, the Pandava Big Brother and picture of propriety
Political role: Joined the BJP in 2004. Appointed chief of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in 2015, he was caught in an epic battle that lasted longer than the 18-day Kurukshetra war. He is still soldiering on
Raj Babbar
Serial role: Bharat, the emperor and ancestor of the Pandavas and Kauravas, after whom the nation is named
Political role: Samajwadi MP once, then defeated Samajwadi scion Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple. Now Rajya Sabha MP and Uttar Pradesh Congress chief
Mukesh Khanna
Serial role: Bhishma, the great-uncle of the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Ages later, wounded BJP patriarchs such as L.K.
Advani would recall the leonine father figure on his bed of arrows
Political role: Khanna, who also played the title role in the popular TV show Shaktiman, campaigned for the BJP in several elections but never got a party post or ticket
Debasree Roy
Serial role: Satyavati, Bhishma’s stepmother and the mother of Vyasa, who authored the epic. Probably, the most consequential queen mother ever
Political role: Trinamul MLA. Unlike Satyavati, not very political
NOT TO FORGET THE RAMAYAN (Mahabharat’s predecessor in the Hindu Yug as well as in the TV yug)
Arun Govil
Serial role: Ram
Political role: Rajiv Gandhi had requested him in vain to campaign for the Congress. Last year, suggestions were made Govil was keen to join the BJP but no word since then
Deepika Chikhalia
Serial role: Sita
Political role: Elected as the BJP Lok Sabha MP from Vadodara in 1991. Left politics, married to a Mumbai industrialist
Arvind Trivedi
Serial role: Ravan
Political role: Became a BJP Lok Sabha MP in 1991. Appointed acting chairman of the film censor board in 2002
Dara Singh
Serial role: Hanuman. Some are now calling Lankadahan, the burning of Lanka by Hanuman, the first “surgical strike” in history
Political role: In 2003, when Vajpayee ruled, Singh became the first sportsperson to be nominated to the RS.