Newsmaker | Govinda aala re: In his twilight years, the actor in a comeback role

TO THOSE who laughed and danced to the films of Govinda at his peak in the 1990s, it is hard to imagine the youthful actor is now 60. But then, it is also hard to see him as a politician – which is a role he is reprising in real life after a long gap of 14 years.

On Thursday, Govinda joined the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, and is likely to get a ticket as well as be one of the party’s star campaigners.

The career of the actor, who thrived in risque comedies and gave Bollywood one of its top dancing stars, has been in the dumps for a while now. However, his next career move was not expected to be politics given how he burnt his hands last time, with his term as a Congress MP (2004 to 2009) coming to a close amidst a blaze of criticism over his low attendance in Parliament.

He vowed at the time never to return to politics, saying it was not his cup of tea. In 2013, he reiterated this, calling joining politics the biggest mistake of his life and regretting the slide of his acting career after that.

On Thursday, making his comeback, Govinda described it as the end of “a 14-year vanvaas (exile)”, to a party leading “Ram rajya”, going on to praise the work of the Shinde government.

Like his smash Bollywood debut with the hit Love 86, his political start in 2004, in fact, was also a blockbuster. Contesting on the Congress ticket from Mumbai North, Govinda defeated senior BJP leader and five-time MP Ram Naik by 50,000 votes.

Talk is that the Shinde Sena may field him again from the same seat. Interestingly, when asked about this, while Govinda said the CM will decide, Shinde stressed that the actor had laid no conditions for joining, and that he “does not want to contest”.

Govinda was born to Arun Ahuja, who had been