Watch Nidhi Razdan — do celebrities have a place in politics? - video Dailymotion

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As the campaign for the Lok Sabha election gets underway in India, star power is once again making headlines with a big Bollywood name, actor Kangana Ranaut, taking the plunge and joining the BJP.  She is the party’s candidate from the Mandi Lok Sabha seat in her home state of Himachal Pradesh. I have found Kangana’s journey quite fascinating. A small town girl, she was the outsider who broke into the film industry’s ranks with no godfather to help her or launch her.  Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/from-screen-to-parliament-can-kangana-ranaut-deliver-as-an-mp-1.102013494  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  #UAEnews #India #politics

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00:00Well, the Lok Sabha elections of 2024 have just got a bit more interesting, with actor

00:08Kangana Ranaut throwing her hat into the ring. She's going to be contesting on a BJP ticket

00:13from Monday in her home state of Himachal Pradesh. The question, though, is that if

00:17Kangana does win this election, will she be a good MP? Because when we look at the record

00:23of celebrity MPs, it's actually not a great record. With a handful of exceptions, most

00:30celebrity MPs have actually been duds in Parliament. If you look at official records, for example,

00:37you have an MP like Sunny Deol, the superstar of Indian cinema, who was elected from Gurdaspur

00:43in Punjab last time, but who had amongst the worst attendance at just 17% in the outgoing

00:49Lok Sabha. Then you had others in the past like Rekha and Sachin Tendulkar, who were

00:54nominated to the Rajya Sabha, but who barely attended the house. Their attendance was less

00:59than 10% and their contribution practically nil. So at the end of the day, celebrities

01:05may be good at what they do in their respective fields, but that doesn't mean they necessarily

01:09make good MPs or good politicians. There are exceptions. We've got the BJP's Manoj Tiwari,

01:15for example, celebrity turned politician, who actually has a very good attendance record,

01:20a good record of asking questions as well, and therefore is among those handful that actually do

01:28speak up in Parliament and do actually contribute. But celebrities by and large don't seem to make

01:34the best parliamentarians. One wonders why they even accept contesting or accept Rajya Sabha

01:40nominations if they don't have the time to devote to Parliament in the first place. It also

01:45doesn't help that Parliament as an institution has also been slowly eroded over the years

01:50and in general now meets for far fewer sittings and has far fewer debates and discussions.

Watch Nidhi Razdan — do celebrities have a place in politics?

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