Can Kushboo save the Congress in Tamil Nadu?

For now, actor Kushboo has done what she had always been best at - springing a surprise.  

"This was no overnight thing. I have always been a Congress person, a Congress follower, really", said the diva of many controversies, who until six months ago was the DMK’s prettiest face in Tamil Nadu.

After she had quit M Karunanidhi’s  family-run DMK alleging she was "sidelined", few had expected her to join the Congress. Rumours had been rife in Tamil Nadu that she was all set to join the BJP, which she furiously scotched on Twitter. The Congress is in more than a shambles in Tamil Nadu and the party’s recent split, with former union minister GK Vasan scooting off with a chunk of its dwindling workers, could have made most aspirants rethink. But then, Kushboo has always revelled in being unconventional. "I see myself working for the party not only in Tamil Nadu but also all over the country. I see myself helping to kindle new hopes for this party," the star gushed on Wednesday evening.

She even has a unique reason for not looking at the BJP instead:  "I don’t want to ride on someone else’s success".  No prizes for guessing whose.

Anyhow, Kushboo's entry may just be the desperate straw the Congress in Tamil Nadu has been desperately groping for, particularly at a time when GK Vasan is going to officially launch his new party on Friday.

In hindsight, even her decision to join the DMK  in 2010 was a big surprise in Tamil Nadu -  she was then anchoring a hugely popular show on Jaya TV, a channel backed by the party’s arch rival AIADMK -  and expectations were that she would join the AIADMK.

Until she had quit the DMK in June 2014 , Kushboo was the party’s star campaigner, addressing meetings and rallies throughout the state in every election, drawing huge crowds wherever she went. Though M. Karunanidhi was said to be very fond of her and had encouraged her, she was never offered any official position in the party. Ironically, DMK treasurer MK Stalin's supporters had always seen her as a potential threat to him, and she was even attacked at a party meeting. Given Kushboo's illustrious career in Tamil cinema and Tamil Nadu's undying fascination for actors-turned-politicians, perhaps Stalin's supporters cannot be accused of harbouring exaggerated fears.

The actor was a big rage in the state and beyond during her heyday in the 1980s, with even a temple built for her by her fans at Tiruchirapalli. Her hugely controversial take on premarital sex and the 22 odd cases that she was slapped with for that may have taken away some sheen in the interim. But while most Tamil  heroines of the 1980s had faded into oblivion to resurface later in character roles and television serials for survival, Kushboo had rarely stayed out of the limelight. She had successfully acted in TV shows, judged in reality shows, produced serials and films, and of course, provided the badly needed glamour quotient to the DMK too.

It remains to be seen if the the Congress leaders in Chennai will be able to handle her or whether she give them the jitters as she did to Stalin's supporters.