Mixed luck for film stars at LS polls

The film fraternity had mixed luck at the hustings with BJP nominees Hema Malini, Kirron Kher and Paresh Rawal, Trinamool's Monmoon Sen and Independent candidate Innocent making their Lok Sabha debut while some like Raj Babbar, Nagma, Gul Panag and Jaya Prada bit the dust.
Hema Malini, Bollywood's 'Dreamgirl', made the dream debut winning from the Mathura constituency in Uttar Pradesh where a Narendra Modi wave swept the state. The actor, who has been a nominated member of Rajya Sabha, defeated incumbent Jayant Chaudhary of Rashtriya Lok Dal.
Veteran actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha of BJP won from Patna Sahib for the fourth time where regional actor Kunal Singh from Congress failed to give a challenge.

Another new celebrity entrant, Paresh Rawal, Bollywood's favourite character actor, won in the East Ahmedabad constituency against his closest rival Himmatsingh Prahladsingh Patel of the Congress.
Actor Vinod Khanna, an old BJP faithful, made a comeback by winning against Pratap Singh Bajwa of Congress in Gurdaspur. Khanna had lost the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
Kirron Kher, Bollywood's favourite mother, made an impressive debut from BJP ticket in Chandigarh where she defeated former Railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal of Congress with a margin of 69,642 votes.

Actress Gul Panag, who was also fighting her maiden election from Aam Admi Party, came third.

Bhagwant Maan, a stand-up comedian, won in Sangrur defeating his closest rival Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa of Shiromani Akali Dal. Maan's stand-up acts were quite popular in his constituency.
AAP's Javed Jaffrey lost to BJP President Rajnath Singh from Lucknow by a huge margin.
TV star-turned-politician Smriti Irani of BJP gave a good fight to Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi in Amethi but was trailing.
In Delhi, Bhojpuri singer-actor Manoj Tiwari won the North-East Delhi constituency by defeating his closest rival Anand Kumar of AAP.
However, luck did not smile upon the celebrity contestants fighting from Congress with Raj Babbar (Ghaziabad), Ravi Kishen (Jaunpur), Kunal Singh (Patna Sahib) and Nagma (Meerut) losing their respective constituencies.

Bhojpuri superstar Kishan came in the fifth position in UP's Jaunpur district where Kishan Pratap of BJP won while Nagma came fourth in Meerut where Rajendra Agarwal of BJP won.