Originally posted by: EkPaheli
It was after the Godhra train massacre that led to the riots later. The worst earthquake in the past 2 centuries had hit Gujarat and the then BJP CM of Gujarat was proving to be incompetent to handle the disaster, so Modi took over from him instead and Patel resigned. He started the process officially and could order the relevant authorities without anyone questioning him or his authority to do so. He was on ground himself managing the disaster relief with Shah. His work was far better than Patel and the results started showing. That didn’t go down well with a lot of people.
Within a couple of months of Modi becoming the CM this tragedy appeared followed by the riots.
Aamir Khan and other celebrities were talking crap about Modi back then. Aamir even joined that fake activist Medha Patkar to stop the Narmada project which would go onto facilitate the supply of water to my native place of Kutch with hundreds of small villages and areas of Gujarat where people were unable to get decent drinking water even 5 decades after our independence.
All this is early 2000s before Modi was even officially announced as PM candidate by BJP the first time around. Man had barely completed his first term as CM and they were against him from the moment he practically took office because his reputation as an on ground worker far preceded him.
Smriti joined BJP at the heights of the popularity of Kyunki in 2003/4 iirc. She was the number one TV actress popular across India and even abroad, Kyunki was the number one show. Smriti’s performance as a minister was a surprise to many, but here merely joining the BJP rattled people because the trick of having popular celebs as namesake political candidates fighting elections was old and practically perfected by the Congress back then. They went for movie stars mostly though, but the BJP saw the growing popularity of TV and how it was now a household thing across the country and with time even smallest homes will have at least a single, simple TV. They didn’t mind getting a TV actress on their party, the fact that they managed to land the biggest name of that era was just the icing on the cake.
Naturally it ruffled a few feathers but people still underestimated, ridiculed and looked down upon Smriti as she was a mere TV actress compared to a movie star. It took the opponents a while to touch grass and accept TV was not a small thing when the likes of Amitabh Bachchan and KJo did shows and then invited Smriti and Saakshi on the same.
Surprised to hear about Saakshi myself but this is because it’s literally now that Tina has spoken about it. She didn’t back then nor did anyone else from the show.
Dr Aarambhi
Cricket
Ye Hai Mohabbatein
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