PLAYING A NEW ROLE

A firebrand Bollywood actress, regional thespians and a Kolkata Knight Rider, this contingent is familiar with how to mark their presence

- Anilesh S. Mahajan, Jeemon Jacob, Prashant Srivastava, Arkamoy Datta Majumdar

SURESH GOPI. 66

BJP Thrissur, Kerala

THE DEBUTANTS - ENTERTAINERS / SPORTSPERSON

His early turn was as an Angry Young Man, not just bristling with anarchist rage against the system, but willing and able to act on that with booming fists, fast bullets and a tongue that was itself arson.

His overall comportment-6'2" and a high GDP on girth-meant he had to soon transition to a niche within the system. But again, mostly as a tough cop, the kind of IPS officer who, when called in for a dressing down by a corrupt minister, would bolt the door behind him and alchemise said minister into pounded meat. Such is the filmic image of the man-notwithstanding the touch of grey eminence he tried in recent films, including as host of Malayalam version of KBCon whose superstardom the BJP finally breached the gap between desire and reality in Kerala.

His actual shift to the system-as Union MoS (Tourism, Petroleum)was enabled by a perception of being a 'nice guy, after all' in real life, even a disarming ingénue.

Family man, father of five children, no tinsel town excesses, solidly conservative in short. Even the Syrian Catholics of Thrissur were impressed enough to hand out their benedictions to Saffron rather than Red.

ARUN GOVIL, 72

|BJP | Meerut, Uttar Pradesh

Shocking the faithful and the credulous, the BJP lost Ayodhya. Or rather, Faizabad, the constituency that hosts the lavish new Ram mandir. In Meerut, though, the electorate reposed their trust in the Lord's doppelganger-Arun Govil, whose beatific visage lent calendar-art perfection to the 1987 DD serial Ramayan.

He also played the PM recentlyin political drama Article 370. But life asks him to play only an MP. Hints of betrayal infused that story too with drama and politics but the ending was divine.

KANGNA RANAUT, 38 |BJP | Mandi, Himachal Pradesh