'Megastar' draws big crowds in Indian election

updated 4:48 p.m. ET April 26, 2009

VIJAYAWADA, India - Chiranjeevi waved to the screaming boys standing in the tree branches and saluted the throngs of men dancing atop the bus roof.

As his caravan crawled down the main road of this south Indian city, the movie-star-turned-politician bowed toward the women getting trampled and the driver who abandoned his car, doors still open, to join the raucous crowd.

Chiranjeevi, the beloved hero of 149 adventure-romance films, has quickly become a political force since leaving Tollywood, the Telugu-language film industry that he ruled for three decades, to found his own party and contest elections in the key state of Andhra Pradesh.

Transforming celebrity into political power
Blending Huey Long's populism, Ronald Reagan's charisma, Michael Jackson's moonwalk and Rod Blagojevich's haircut, the stocky, mustachioed actor, known to many simply as "Megastar," aims to become the latest in a long line of south Indian movie stars to transform godlike celebrity into political power.

Chiranjeevi, or "the immortal one," thunderously assails the state's two leading parties as corrupt and out of touch. He promises to fight for the poor and downtrodden, as movie audiences in Andhra Pradesh have seen him do for years.

Whether the masses flock to him for his celebrity or his politics, his debut has been extraordinary. The crowd at Chiranjeevi's first rally: one million people. (The crowd at Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington: 250,000.)

"Chiranjeevi creates confidence in people," said Jyoti Prasad, 22, a student at a recent rally in eastern Andhra Pradesh. "'I can do good' — he makes me think that."

Chiranjeevi, who belongs to the low Kapu caste, presents his party as an insurgency that will undo the power structure run by the same parties and influential castes for decades. He aims to become the top official in Andhra Pradesh, which no Kapu has ever done. The state has more than 75 million people with a booming IT sector but a vast poor, rural population.

"The government is self-centered," Chiranjeevi, 53, said in an interview aboard his campaign bus. "They don't have love and affection for the people...I always keep the poor man in my mind. We can bring change."

No clear favorite has emerged
Voting is finished in the state, but results won't be counted until May 16. He's a long shot, but no clear favorite has emerged in the Indian election, which is being held in five phases with some 714 million eligible voters.

The vote comes during a time of uncertainty, with the global recession threatening to undo two decades of economic growth and the largest parties struggling to rally support. Chiranjeevi's Praja Rajyam Party is one of a host of small, regional parties that have arisen, many with narrow visions but broad ambitions to become players in any coalition that emerges from a splintered vote.

His party is competing against the ruling Congress Party, which sees the state as a stronghold crucial to its shaky coalition; and the Telugu Desam, a powerful regional party founded in 1982 by the late N.T. Rama Rao, the only Tollywood star whose popularity rivaled Chiranjeevi's.

The path from cinema to politics is well trod. The biggest star of Tamil films, M. G. Ramachandran, ruled the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu for a decade before his death in 1987. His former co-star, J. Jayalalithaa, remains a leading state politician.

South India is so devoted to its movie stars that fans have been known to commit suicide in their honor. Historians say the bond comes from regional and linguistic pride, and a desire to stand against Hindi, the language of Bollywood, the country's biggest film industry, and the most widely spoken of India's 22 official tongues.

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