S. Pratap and Indu's Rajneeti

From reel to real, then back to Rajneeti. But Prakash Jha’s dip into politics seems to have reaffirmed a lesson in this season of the Jaswant Effect: it’s risky to take chances with political personalities, historical or contemporary.

The filmmaker may be bitter with the Congress after his recent poll defeat but denied that the plot of his film Rajneeti, whose shooting resumed here today, had any relation to the lives of Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi.

The film portrays a touching love story featuring Katrina Kaif and Ranbir Kapoor. Katrina, who plays Indu, loses her father and then her husband, forcing her to take up the family mantle of politics.

Similarly, the boyish charm of Ranbir and his dimples have reminded many of Rajiv Gandhi.

Jha denied that the character played by Katrina had “anything to do with Sonia Gandhi”. An edge crept into his voice: “Except that both are good-looking and wear saris, nothing is common between the two…. Let people speculate.”

Jha’s refusal to take a leaf out of Jaswant’s Jinnah book came on a day a fourth “J” — sidelined Congress leader Ajit Jogi — spoke of how he had included Rajiv Gandhi among his childhood heroes in his soon-to-be-published book.

But Rajiv, obviously, has nothing to do with one of the heroes of Jha’s film, so it must be a coincidence that Ranbir’s character S. Pratap — who studies in the US and hates politics though he is from a political family — is sucked into politics before losing his life.

Perhaps Jha’s caution stems from his experience of naming his villain Sadhu Yadav — after Lalu Prasad’s now-estranged brother-in-law — in his 2003 film, Gangaajal. That turned Sadhu into his enemy.

When Jha contested Bihar’s West Champaran seat in the last general election as the Lok Janshakti Party nominee, the Congress insisted on fielding Sadhu, who ran a vitriolic campaign and cut heavily into Jha’s votes.

Jha, however, accepted his film did have a relation to current Indian politics. “It’s a modern-day Mahabharat that explores the grimy world of politics in the Hindi heartland of India,” he said.

Not that at least one player is untouched by Bollywood rajneeti, far away from the heartland. Katrina today declared she would “never ever” act with Viveik Oberoi, the remark appearing to have come straight from boyfriend Salman Khan’s script.

Salman’s antipathy for Viveik is well-known and, in a recent interview, he said he had asked Katrina not to work with one “idiot”. The actor said he would not mind Katrina working with John Abraham or Shah Rukh Khan.

As Katrina spoke against Viveik, Jha nodded his approval. Viveik was supposed to have acted in Rajneeti alongside Ajay Devgan, Nana Patekar, Ranbir and Naseeruddin Shah, but Viveik’s publicist Dale Bhagwagar said the actor couldn’t find the dates. Viveik, apparently, is fully booked for a Karan Johar production.

But if Indu had nothing to do with Sonia, nor had Salman anything to do with Katrina’s boycott of Viveik. “I take my own decisions and Salman has nothing to do with it,” Katrina said.

Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090906/jsp/frontpage/story_11457511.jsp