Congress woos Bollywood stars for polls campaign

The impressive line-up of the stars also included former Miss Indias and actresses Celina Jaitley, Namrata Shirodkar, young actor Sharad Kapoor and comedian Asrani.

Only Moushumi Chatterjee, the heroine of the eighties in Bengali and Hindi films, joined Congress by filling up the membership enrolment form while the other film personalities told media persons that they would only campaign for the party in the coming polls.

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Moushumi, daughter-in-law of late singer-music composer Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, said she would be happy to contest the polls from any part of the country--not only from her home state of West Bengal -- if Congress wants her to do so.

She, however, avoided a question if she would like to take on fierbrand Trinamool Congress Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata South parliamentary constituency.

The political grapevine has it that well-known social activist and actress Nafisa Ali is likely to be put up by Congress against Mamata in that constituency.

Moushumi said she joined Congress because of its ideology and secular outlook.

Zeenat Aman, another former Miss India and a sizzling actress of the seventies who shot into fame with her performance in Dev Anand-starrer film "Hare Rama Hare Krishna," said the Congress' secular view attracted her to the party.

Zeenat, mother of two teenaged children, pointed out that she was brought up in a secular mileu given the fact that her mother is a Brahmin and father a Muslim.

Asrani provided wholesome entertainment to the mediapersons at the Congress party headquarters when he concluded his speech by reciting a modified version of his famous dialogue from the superhit film "Sholay": "thode se idhar, thode se udhar aur baki sab Congress me (some on this side, some on that and the rest all to Congress)."