Why Manisha's mission failed

Bollywood actress Manisha Koirala, who offered autographs for votes while campaigning for an independent candidate in the controversial local bodies elections in Nepal, failed to cut much ice with the voters.

Manisha, the granddaughter of Nepal's first elected prime minister the late B.P. Koirala, was in the Himalayan kingdom to campaign for Binod Arryal, a small-time politician, in the elections held Wednesday.

However, most of the Nepali voters were against the elections called by King Gyanendra with nearly 80 percent voters staying away from voting and over 54 percent of the posts remaining vacant.

The Koirala family, now headed by B.P. Koirala's brother Girija Prasad Koirala, three-time former prime minister of Nepal and chief of the Nepali Congress party, has been opposing the government headed by Gyanendra as well as the elections.

Significantly, Manisha and her father Prakash Koirala chose to support the king and the elections.

As her granduncle, two uncles and aunt were arrested for campaigning against Wednesday's polls, Manisha flew in from Mumbai to canvass for Arryal, who left the Nepali Congress to vie for the mayor's post as an independent candidate.

Along with her father, who is a minister in Gyanendra's cabinet, Manisha went to Biratnagar city in eastern Nepal, the family seat of the Koiralas, where her election mantra was "one vote, one autograph".

Though people flocked to gape at the Bollywood star, not many had interest in Manisha, the politician.

In Biratnagar, the second largest municipality after capital city Kathmandu, the bait of Manisha's autographs could fetch only 2,700 votes for Arryal.

The actress lost out to wily politician and home minister Kamal Thapa, whose nominee Prahlad Prasad Shah won the contest, garnering 7,645 votes.

Interestingly, both Manisha's father and Thapa had tried to split their mother parties to support the elections boycotted by over 80 percent of the parties, including the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist that won over 81 percent of the seats in the last elections.

However, while Thapa's faction of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party has been the most successful in Wednesday's elections, Prakash Koirala's Nepali Congress (Nationalist) made no mark.

Even Koirala himself, despite being B.P. Koirala's son and a minister, was eclipsed by his actress daughter who was the focus of the state media.

A defeated Manisha was returning to Mumbai Sunday, leaving speculations whether see would be coming back next year to campaign for the general election the king has decided to hold by April 2007.