India News

BJP Defeat At Assembly Elections: Rajini Calls It A Setback; Kamal, Vishal & Prakash Raj Welcome People’s Mandate

By Adithya Narayan

“This clearly shows that the BJP has lost its influence,” was what Rajinikanth had to say while speaking to media persons about the election results on Tuesday. The actor, who is about to plunge into politics, has lately been issuing ambiguous statements about the party and its prime minister.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Considered to be the semi-finals to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, polls at five states were carried out last week with the counting of votes commencing yesterday morning. By evening, results emerged showing a resurgence of Congress in three states with the party staking claim to form the government in two of them.

While the party emerged victorious in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, in Madhya Pradesh, it fell short of the majority mark. The Congress could manage only 114 seats. However, it has decided to meet governor Anandiben Patel to stake claim to form the government.

Though the Congress lost to TRS and MNF in Telangana and Mizoram, it has managed to wrest power from the BJP in areas considered to be the Hindi heartland.

Talking about the BJP’s performance, Rajinikanth said: “I have said that this (the electoral performance) is definitely a setback. There is no doubt that this is a big setback.”

Another superstar who is likely to join the political race even before Rajinikanth is Kamal Haasan. Having announced his political party Makkal Neethi Mayaikam in February this year, the actor tweeted about the election results, “First signs of a new beginning. This is people’s mandate,” he said.

Tamil Film Producers’ Council president and Nadigar Sangam general secretary Vishal Krishna, speaking at the press meet for the film KGF, said that the results reflect the state of mind of the people. “BJP failed to make good of their electoral promises, and that’s the reason for their defeat,” he added.

Actor Prakash Raj too, echoed Vishal’s opinion, calling the results ‘citizens’ mann ki baat’.

Actress and politician Khushbu congratulated her party’s leader Rahul Gandhi and said that she was proud to have him as the party supremo.

Divya Spandana, who heads the social media wing of the Congress party and also an actress, posted an old tweet of BJP with a ‘fix’.

Meanwhile, Shatrughan Sinha unleashed a string of tweets pointing out that BJP’s overconfidence betrayed them.

Adithya Narayan is a Alum at Silverscreen India, and can be reached on Twitter at adithyanr66 or by email at adithya@silverscreen.in