Allahabad: At 81, Amitabh Bachchan still works as hard as a 40-year-old.
Though his wife Jaya Bachchan is Rajya Sabha member representing Samajwadi Party (SP), Amitabh is far removed from politics.
He had no role to play in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
But on close analysis of the results, there is a link with Amitabh.
Congress party, which did remarkably well with INDIA bloc partner SP in Uttar Pradesh, managed to win the Allahabad seat after a long gap of 40 years, as Ujjwal Raman Singh beat BJP’s Neeraj Tripathi by a margin of 58,795 votes.
The last time a Congress won from the Allahabad Parliamentary constituency was none other than Big B.
Then 41, Amitabh ventured into politics to support long-time family friend Rajiv Gandhi.
The Bollywood superstar agreed to contest the 1984 Lok Sabha election from Allahabad, his birthplace, on a Congress candidate.
His massive popularity helped Big B rout former UP chief minister and political heavyweight Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna. Bachchan received a staggering 68.2% of votes polled, still one of the biggest victory margins in India’s electoral politics.
Congress swept to power in the 1984 election, riding on the sympathy factor soon after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The grand old party won a record 414 Lok Sabha seats and Rajiv took over as Prime Minister.
Amitabh’s tryst with politics, however, didn’t last a full term and he resigned from the Lok Sabha in 1987 after the Bofors scandal broke, which linked the Bachchans.
