http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=38625

Gork Hapatra
March 21st, 2008

CA Polls No Film Actor, Director Vying
Bishnu Gautam

If all goes well, the Nepali people, after 21 days, will be casting their votes for their favourite candidates and parties in the first Constituent Assembly election slated for April 10. The canvassing for the crucial poll is now in full swing with all parties and independent candidates visiting the voters pleading for votes.

Almost all the parties have tried to make their parties inclusive by fielding candidates from all ethnic, lingual and regional groups. As a result, there are women candidates and candidates from Dalits, Madhesis and Janajatis groups and professionals like businessmen. But interestingly, none of the party has fielded candidates from the film sector for both direct and proportional systems of polls.

In a sense, people involved in the cinema have been completely excluded from the forthcoming CA polls though three singers are contesting the polls.

Why were the people directly involved in the cinema sector denied the party tickets? Most of the actors and directors blame the parties for neglecting the importance of the people involved in the cinema for the CA.

. . .

Yuba Raj Lama, another director, says that when an actor or director cannot hold the flag of a particular party, the latter does not give the ticket to the former and one cannot join the party without having specific objective. Citing examples from Bollywood, Lama says that even in India those film stars who joined party politics could not give continuity to their career in films.

Govinda is only an exception in this regard and he is doing films intending to give up his career in politics," Lama says. When a star or director joins a party, there is a danger that he may lose the audience having faith in other parties, he adds. However, Lama says that smaller parties have approached the film stars and directors this time to accept candidacy from their parties but major parties did not approach them.

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