Starry, starry plight

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission has a new headache now. Prasar Bharati has questioned if it is proper to allow telecast of films starring Bollywood and small-screen stars either contesting elections or campaigning for them.

That’s a really tough one considering the starry line-up this time. Forget Poonam Dhillon or Zeenat Aman or Namrata Shirodkar who are only playing pretty votecatchers, chhote miyan Govinda, Dutt saab, garam Dharam, Smriti ‘Tulsi’ Irani and Jayaprada are actually in the fray.

If the Election Commission sticks to precedent and does not change colour according to convenience like our political parties, the stars should be blanked out. After all, it had banned the telecast of Rajesh Khanna films during the 1996 polls because the aging star had jumped into the fray.

But things were easier then. At least there weren’t hundreds of television channels to police over and good old DD wouldn’t be much trouble anyway.

Although the Election Commission is scheduled to put its thinking cap on this week — and Prasar Bharti insists it is an urgent matter — sources sounded sceptical. They said they had the authority to control only the public broadcaster and weren’t sure if they were empowered to wield the stick over private channels.

Varun’s vision

SULTANPUR: If Rahul is here, can Varun be far behind?

Sanjay Gandhi’s son Varun, who’s too young to jump into the fray this time, has hinted that he wouldn’t be catching votes for others in the next Lok Sabha elections but might contest from Sultanpur himself.

Recalling his family’s ties with the constituency, he said: “My family has strong ties with the people of this constituency. My father had a vision for the development of the area. Next time, I shall contest from here.”

Nightmares anyone, at the thought of a replay of Sanjay Gandhi’s “vision”?

Sorry, Sunil

MUMBAI: Hell hath no fury like Sunil Dutt defamed.

A day before his big fight with Sanjay Nirupam from Mumbai North West, the Congress MP has served a legal notice on his Shiv Sena rival, asking him to apologise for false propaganda that the star hadn’t turned up in Parliament even for a single day.

If the apology didn’t come by soon enough, Sanjay would have to face criminal defamation charges, Dutt fumed.