“Prajatantra praangan mein bhagwan ajab tamaasha horiyaan,
Ganapati bappa moriyaan!

Jod-tod ke khel ho rahey, mantri mandal fail ho rahey,
Naari ke jhandey ke neechey male aaj female ho rahey.
Naach rahey kathputali-guddey, kheench rahey hain doriyaan,
Ganapati bappa moriyaan.

And so on.

Considering that this was written like over twenty years ago, it is sad that these lines still apply to our present. One of the possible reasons for this is also captured in the poem. I am kinda shaky on these lines; please forgive any misquote here:

Iimaandaar afsar ko baaki milkar beiiman banaa dein,
Laalach ka petrol chhidak kar naitiktaa mein aag lagaa dein.
tu bhi khaa aur mujhey khilaa, yaa baandh bistaraa boriyaan,
Ganapati bappa moriyaan.

Anonymous Coward has a point there methinks.

On another note, I agree with heejeebeejee that an actor need not necessarily be a bad politician. We have had some effective examples, especially in the US like Reagan (the most famous example), Arnold, and Clint Eastwood.

In India we tend to hold their professions against them…

There is a diff betn people who come to ‘see’ stars and who ‘vote’ for them.Celeberities are crowd pullers but not necessarily vote catchers.Major political parties themselves realise they have to put with this tamasha of reining in stars in the hope they would neccessarily translate atleast some of the people from ‘seeing’ to ‘voting’.The one who has the ability to blur the two is i feel people like MGR and NTR.MGR’s mid day meal scheme has been followed throughout india with innovations being added every year to that project by every political party.And they were in no way less capable than was rajiv gandhi who simply had the post thrust on him.When you look at people like RG,rabri,omar abdullah and maran i think its unfair to say film celebrities are not fit to be politicians.

People who have voted popular film politicans have kicked them out too.Shatrugan sinha has been in the BJP for too long to be considered a novice.vijayakanth was voted ‘indian of the year’ by the central govt for his social work.He has been slowly and steadily increasing his base as any seasoned politician.

If some of the deservedly undeserving candidates are appointed some parliamentary comittee head or cabinet minister then it is a cause for worry.Even here i think the political parties and their leaders have been smart.They know ‘their’ stars would be much more useful if they dance at the border for jawans to raise money if something like kargil comes up

Sri

Are we that dumb? Please God, let it not be so

“….a “swing” constituency—pavement dwellers, endangered species”
“….at last recognized for being one of the nation’s foremost bibliophiles”

In your element here…Hilarious. Keep it coming, elections come only one in a while

cheers