Bollywood stars shine in 5th phase of Lok Sabha polling in Mumbai

One of the most visible features of the just-concluded fifth phase of polling in Mumbai, which also marked the completion of Maharashtra’s tryst with the ballot, was the spotlight on Bollywood and, to a lesser extent, television stars showing up to vote.
As they turned up in casuals, away from the glamour and glitz of Bollywood events, in cars that ranged from a Maybach (Deepika-Ranveer) to an old-fashioned Maruti (Tabu), followed closely by the paparazzi, the stars obliterated the political figures who usually dominate headlines emanating from Maharashtra.
Even high-profile candidates such as Piyush Goyal and Ujjwal Nikam could not dominate the media mindspace as much as the stars, from Akshay Kumar, who was voting after getting his Indian citizenship, to Shah Rukh Khan, to Amitabh, who showed up with wife Jaya, suffering the blazing heat but not showing the least discomfort.
Mumbai’s peripatetic paparazzi had been alerted a day in advance about the polling booths where the stars could be spotted.
Most of the stars, from Sanya Malhotra to Ranbir Kapoor, were happy to simply flash their inked index finger and not speak, but some, notably Dharmendra, Akshay Kumar, and Rajkummar Rao, gave statements to the media urging Mumbaikars to vote.
Yet others, such as SRK, Anupam , urged people not to waste the right in statements they put up on their social media handles hours before the fifth phase started. (IANS)