South India has this strong hero worship culture, be it cinema or politics. The kind of love and affiliation that South Indian people have towards actors and politicians is beyond ordinary.
Now we are seeing an interesting interlude between Cinema and politics in South Indian demographic as the representation of Cinema stars in the legislative houses is increasing.
In Tamil Nadu, the chief minister, Vijay obviously has Cinema background and he managed to become the CM right off the back of successful films which built an image, followed by a social media wave.
Interestingly enough, even the opposition leader Udhayanidhi Stalin has cinema background as he made a handful of films as a hero earlier, and even used to produce films while he was the deputy CM.
The state of Tamil Nadu Assembly is such that the chief minister and the opposition leader both have cinema backgrounds.
Even in Andhra Pradesh, we have adequate representation of cinema stars. In fact, the deputy chief minister, Pawan Kalyan is a cinema star by profession and he currently holds an administrative position.
Hindupur MLA Nandamuri Balakrishna is one of the veteran actors around and also a long time chief minister.
It is very much evident that South Indian politics are heavily leaning towards film stars these days. We have to see if this would encourage the next round of actors also to pursue politics as a serious recourse.
