A host of Bollywood celebs came to welcome West Bengal chief minister Mamta Banerjee as she arrived in Mumbai to meet with her possible political affiliations and expand her horizons beyond WB.
A special event was organized for the minister, in which the likes of Javed Akhtar, Swara Bhasker, Richa Chaddha, Konkona Sen Sharma, Kubra Sait and Mahesh Bhatt, among others, were seen in attendance.
While Akhtar sat beside Mamta in the panel, filmmaker Bhatt addressed the chief minister, calling her the ‘face of hope’.
Lashing out at the right-wing, he was quoted as saying:
“The story of India is too vast and diverse to reduce it to one narrative. The story of plural, diverse and tolerant India has to be that. How are going to protect liberals from the goons of the right wing?”
She responded to the monologue stating:
“India loves manpower not muscle power. We are facing a cruel undemocratic party the BJP. If we are together, we will win.”
Meanwhile, Swara Bhasker spoke about going out of work due to her stance against the right-wing ideologies, bringing up the subject of UAPA while introducing Munawar Faruqui (also in attendance) to the crowd, responding to which Mamta asked her to join politics.
Calling it ‘keeping the resistance alive’, Swara spoke for nearly 4 minutes about her strong stance against the current central government as she put forward her plea of risking her acting career over the same.
Responding to it Mamta stated – “Why don’t you join politics? You’re a tough and strong lady.”
Mamta is one of the many faces, spearheading a movement to join forces, to beat the Bhartiya Janta Party in the center.
What is interesting about it is how unabashedly outspoken Bollywood has lately become in announcing their political stances, like never before. The support of the who’s who of the industry for Mamta and even Congress and NCP, gives a hint at where majority of the film industry’s political affiliations lie.
Would be interesting to see how this benefits Ms. Banerjee outside of her territory of West Bengal.