The campaign for Tuesday’s assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh lacked not only a central theme, but also the other staple of the Great Indian Poll tamasha: Bollywood glamour.

No party invited a major Bollywood A-lister to its campaign, and barring the lone Salman Khan — who campaigned for Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan in Bhokar and for Amit Deshmukh in Latur City — roadshows were populated largely by B-town’s B-listers, long-forgotten stars, and celebs of the small screen.

And so, all that stargazers got to see on the campaign trail were the likes of Shakti Kapoor, Suniel Shetty, Ravi Kissen, Sambhavna Seth, Urmila Matondkar, Chunkey Pandey, Sonali Kulkarni, Priti Jhangiani, Ashutosh Rana, Aamir Ali, Bhagyashree and Aditya Panscholi.

Parties took the line that since Assembly polls were localised affairs, they had kept the overtures to Bollywood at the minimum and left campaign guest lists to individual candidates.

“This being a local election, we left the decision of inviting Bollywood stars to the candidates. The candidates invited people on their own depending on their personal rapport and appeal. As a party, we focused on getting our national and state leaders to campaign. Of course the Bollywood stars added to the campaign but they were not the main people,” said Sanjay Dutt, a co-ordinator with the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee.

A BJP leader at the party headquarters in Mumbai agreed. “Our star Bollywood campaigners are our party people like Hema Malini, Shatrughan Sinha and Smriti Irani. Any other Bollywood star who campaigned for the party was invited by the individual candidates,” said the leader, who did not want to be quoted.

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