Bengaluru:Four days after an announcement on his debut in electoral politics, actor-activist Prakash Raj on Saturday picked Bengaluru (Central) Lok Sabha constituency to contest as an independent during this year’s general elections.
In a tweet, Mr Raj thanked people for the warm and encouraging response to his decision to enter politics, and said he would spell out more details about entering the fray in Bengaluru (Central) constituency, and ended his ended his tweet with a hash tag ‘citizens voice in Parliament’.
The tweet was also accompanied by an image of the actor along with eight Assembly constituencies that come under Bengaluru central.
In Bengaluru (Central), Mr Raj could be up against BJP’s P. C. Mohan, who defeated Congress candidate and former state Youth Congress president Rizwan Arshad with a margin of over 40,000 votes in 2014. Mr Mohan has held this seat since 2009 when Bengaluru (Central) was carved out from Bengaluru (North) and Bengaluru (South) during the delimitation process.
Mr Raj had, in a tweet on January 1, announced that he would contest Lok Sabha polls as an independent. The multi-lingual actor has been a vocal critic of the BJP in general and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah in particular after his close friend and editor Gauri Lankesh was gunned down allegedly by right-wing members. He had also campaigned for former CM Siddaramaiah during the last Assembly polls.
The actor, who is popular in Bollywood as well as the Tamil, Kannada and Telugu film industry, travelled across Karnataka before the election to speak out against the growing right-wing fanaticism.
His announcement on Twitter was received positively with many congratulatory messages wishes for success in his political career.
