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Sharat Pradhan in Kanpur
Continuing his whirlwind tour of Uttar Pradesh, superstar Amitabh Bachchan arrived in Kanpur on Friday to attend yet another blood donation camp organised by the Samajwadi Party, but insisted once again that there was no politics involved.
To sound more convincing, he connected his sudden interest in blood donation camps to the near-fatal accident he had had on the sets of film Coolie in 1983 when his fans organised several blood donation camps to raise 60-odds bottles of blood to save his life.
He thanked SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and his deputy Amar Singh for including him in their campaign against mafia. And when he called upon the crowd to raise their hands to pledge their support to the cause, people responded enthusiastically.
While some people were disappointed because Amitabh spent just 25 minutes at the rally, others said his rendition of his poet father's famous composition, Agnipath, and that rather bawdy song about wives of various colour and shapes from film Laawaris was worth the three-hour wait.
Opinion was also divided about the political impact of the rally. Rajesh Singh Yadav, a car driver, said: "I do not think his visit would make any difference to the Samajwadi Party's prospects here -- after all, he is an abhineta (actor) and not a neta (leader)."
Samajwadi Party activist Ramesh Singh Chauhan, quite understandably, had a different view. "Amitabh's charisma would surely make some difference as far as fence sitters are concerned," he said. "Even though Bachchan made no formal appeal to the people to vote for the Samajwadi Party, people can read between the lines," he added.
Sunil Kumar, a BA student, believed that the surging crowds would not translate into votes for the Samajwadi Party. "I fail to understand why a person like him have to put up this façade of a blood donation camp for extending support to a particular political party. I am sure if he had been more forthright about his political motive, he could have turned a lot of the crowds here into true SP voters."
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