India elections: Hema Malini gets 3rd term; newcomers Kangana, Arun Govil also win

Indian film stars shone brightly in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections with voters showing their trust in newcomers Kangana Ranaut and Arun Govil as well as returning MPs Hema Malini, Manoj Tiwari, and Ravi Kishan.

The country went to the polls from April 19 to June 1 in seven phases to elect the 543 members of the 18th Lok Sabha.

Assembly elections were also held simultaneously in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha, and Sikkim. The counting of votes took place on Tuesday.

In her first election, Ranaut defeated her rival, Congress' Vikramaditya Singh by 74,755 votes in Himachal Pradesh's Mandi. She polled 5,37,002 votes against 4,62,267 votes polled to King of erstwhile Rampur state, who is also the sitting state Public Works Minister and son of six-time chief minister Virbhadra Singh and state Congress chief Pratibha Singh.

Hema Malini was elected for a straight third term in Lok Sabha from Mathura (Uttar Pradesh) by securing 5,10,064 votes against her nearest rival, Mukesh Dhangar of the Congress, whose vote count of 2,93,407 votes.

Tiwari, a former Bhojpuri cinema star and BJP's candidate from North East Delhi, trounced Congress rival Kanhaiya Kumar by a margin of over 1.38 lakh votes.

This is Tiwari's third win in a row from the seat. In the 2024 general elections, he secured 8,24,451 votes. He was the only sitting MP from Delhi retained by the BJP for the 18th Lok Sabha polls.

Kishan, the BJP contender from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, was elected for a second consecutive term, securing 5,85,834 votes. He defeated Kajal Nishad from the Samajwadi Party by 1,03,526 votes to retain his constituency.

Ramayan star Govil, another newcomer fielded by the BJP besides Ranaut, emerged victorious in the Meerut seat in Uttar Pradesh earning 5,46,469 votes. While early trends were in favour of Sunita Yadav, Govil eventually bested the Samajwadi Party by a margin of 10,585 votes.

Actor-turned-politician Suresh Gopi, another BJP candidate, registered victory in Kerala's Thrissur constituency by gathering 4,12,338 votes. Gopi defeated VS Sunilkumar of the Communist Party of India by 74,686 votes. This is the BJP's first-ever Lok Sabha seat in the state.

Veteran actor Shatrughan Sinha, who was fielded as the Trinamool Congress candidate from West Bengal's Asansol, defeated his nearest rival S S Ahluwalia of the BJP by a margin of 59,564 votes. Sinha secured 6,05,645 votes, whereas Ahluwalia garnered 5,46,081 votes.

Sinha, who has had political stints under the BJP and Congress, joined the TMC in 2022 to contest in the by-election for the Asansol Lok Sabha constituency.

Actor-BJP politician Dinesh Lal Yadav, better known by his stage name Nirahua, lost in Uttar Pradesh's Azamgarh seat by a margin of 1,61,035 votes to his nearest rival Samajwadi Party candidate Dharmendra Yadav.

While Yadav polled 5,08,239 votes, Nirahua got 3,47,204 votes.

Actor and Janasena chief Pawan Kalyan won the Pithapuram Assembly seat in Andhra Pradesh defeating his YSR Congress Party rival Vanga Geetha by a margin of over 70,000 votes.

Kalyan polled 1,34,394 votes while his nearest rival Geetha secured 64,115 votes. The Janasena party contested 21 Assembly and two Lok Sabha constituencies.

Bengali actor-turned-politician June Maliah of the TMC won from Medinipur in West Bengal, defeated Agnimitra Paul of the BJP in a tough fight by a margin of 27,191 votes. Maliah garnered 7,02,192 votes, while Paul, state general secretary of the BJP, secured 6,75,001 votes. In 2021, Maliah was elected as Member of West Bengal Legislative Assembly from Medinipur.

In West Bengal's Birbhum, TMC's three-term MP and actor Satabdi Roy secured a win by garnering a whopping 7,17,961 votes over BJP's Debtanu Bhattacharya. Roy beat Bhattarcharya by a margin of 1,97,650 votes.

Actor and TMC MP Rachna Banerjee won the Hooghly constituency in West Bengal by securing 7,02,744 votes. She prevailed over Locket Chatterjee of BJP, also an actor, by 76,853 votes. This will be Banerjee's first term as a politician.

Dev Adhikary of TMC bested fellow actor and BJP's Hiran Chatterjee to hold on to his constituency Ghatal in West Bengal for the third time in a row. Adhikary, who polled 8,37,990 votes, defeated Chatterjee by a margin of over 1,82,868 votes.