‘Jayalalithaa is my role model’

“Sahab so rahe hain , ” we are politely informed on reaching 46-year-old actor Kamaal Rashid Khan aka KRK’s sprawling bungalow in Andheri, for an interview at 1 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. The actor is Samajwadi Party’s candidate from Mumbai North West.

Sofa cushions in every possible colour and a wall plastered with a collage of his life-size photos with celebrities and politicians greet us. Twenty minutes later, Khan arrives, apologising for “being caught up with phone calls” over his business interests including real estate, garment exports, film production and now, politics.

He is infamous for his Bollywood tweets, a controversial ban on his first Bhojpuri film

Deshdrohi for inciting regional violence, and his removal from reality show Big Boss for his violent streak. But, Khan believes he has since changed. With friends in the Congress and BJP, he says, “I know the A to Z of politics and I thought this is the right time to enter politics.”

He did support Kejriwal initially, but he turned out to be a “dramatist”, he says, adding: “Modiji has been doing drama for years. Same is the case with Rahul Gandhi so I decided to step in to change things for the better by joining Samajwadi Party, which has done a lot of work in UP.”

Khan hails from Deoband (Uttar Pradesh), but Andheri has been his home since 2004, so naturally his constituency too. Banking on a Muslim and North-Indian vote bank, he is confident, despite being pitted against the Congress’ Gurudas Kamat, AAP’s Mayank Gandhi, MNS’ Mahesh Manjrekar and Shiv Sena’s Gajanan Kirtikar.

Fake tweets Khan claims his infamous tweets are a fake. “People like Amitabh Bachhan, Karan Johar …know that I don’t abuse stars or movies. Calling a bad film a bad film is not tantamount to abusing….”

“I did call Sonakshi Sinha fat because she is. I did call Madhuri Dixit old because she is. I think there is nothing wrong in telling it like it is,” he adds defensively.

But that too will change. “After joining politics by my own choice, I will have to tweet more responsibly,” he says. Khan has no politician role-models from the Hindi film industry. But he does have a surprise idol from Tamil Nadu.

“I consider Jayalalithaa as my role model as she came into politics from a film background, proved herself to be a 100 per cent politician and today is a big politician who has her own voice and reputation, which is why I naturally want to follow her footsteps,” he signs off.