Beauty pageant to the silver screen is a common road traveled by commercial Hindi Cinema's (Bollywood) icons such as Priyanka Chopra, Aishwarya Rai and Juhi Chawla. However, the silver screen to politics is another road taken by some of India's most prolific actresses, like Kirron Kher, who adds a pit of panache to the Lok Sabha (lower house of the Parliament of India).
The beloved actress-turned-politician who defeated rival candidate Pawan Kumar Bansal to win the Chandigarh seat in the general elections in May, is constantly being snapped by the press as she enters sessions of the 16th Lok Sabha. A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Kirron defeated Pawan by 69,642 votes.
Kirron, 61, joined the BJP in 2009, decided to contest the elections for the first time in March, after previous reluctance to do so. She follows a notable list of actresses in India who have ventured into politics, such as current Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa Jayaram. Hema Malini, and parallel (independent) cinema icon, Shabana Azmi, are also notable actresses who have taken the leap from Bollywood to the political sphere.
Kirron Kher has starred and appeared in over 30 films ranging from Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali and Malayalam cinema, and has worked with legendary directors such as Shyam Benegal in the 1996 film Sardari Begum. Kirron can be seen in the film Punjab 1984, directed by Anurag Singh, to be released this summer, but if you can't wait, just grab a copy of Dostana or the 2002 remake of Devdas which she is absolutely fantastic in.
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