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Who is Kangana Ranaut?
Kangana Ranaut, a Bollywood actress known for her roles in critically acclaimed films and multiple award wins, is a MP in the Lok Sabha representing Mandi constituency of Himachal Pradesh.
In 2020, she was honoured with the Padma Shri, the country's fourth-highest civilian award. She has been featured six times in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list.
Ranaut has been an outspoken figure in Bollywood, often discussing issues ranging from nepotism in the industry to national politics, which has both garnered her support and stirred controversy.
Early life
Born on March 23, 1987, in Bhambla, a small town in Himachal Pradesh, Ranaut moved to Delhi at the age of sixteen and took up modelling for a short period of time. She decided to shift focus towards acting and joined the theatre, where she trained under theatre director Arvind Gaur. Following a positive reaction from theatre audiences, she relocated to Mumbai to pursue a career in Bollywood and enrolled herself for a four-month acting course.
Acting career
In 2004, she auditioned for the lead role in the romantic thriller Gangster, directed by Anurag Basu and produced by Mahesh Bhatt. The movie was released in 2006 with a lot of critical and commercial success. Between 2006 and 2009, the 35-year-old had many films, including Fashion which won her first National Film Award for playing a supermodel coping with substance abuse.
In 2011, she was cast in Anand L Rai's Tanu Weds Manu, a romantic comedy opposite R Madhavan, a game-changer in her own words as she was typecast for playing neurotic characters.
Her 2014 film Queen received unanimous acclaim from critics and was a major box office hit. She received both the Filmfare Award and the National Film Award for Best Actress for it.
In 2017, she starred in Vishal Bhardwaj's Rangoon, and Hansal Mehta's Simran, both of which failed to garner commercial success.
In recent times, the actress Ranaut has been awarded her fourth Best Actress Award for Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, and Panga, released in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
In 2021, she appeared in the biopic Thalaivii, in which she and Arvind Swamy played the actor-turned-politicians J. Jayalalithaa and M. G. Ramachandran.
She will be seen in the upcoming biographical historical drama film Emergency in which she stars as former Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi.
Controversies
The actor-turned-politician, who identifies with the right-wing, is active on social media and often expresses her political views, religious affiliation and activities, and voices criticism of liberals. Her confrontational manner, as evidenced in several well-reported public clashes with colleagues around her views, has attracted some media scrutiny.
In 2020, a Bollywood casting director filed a plea against Ranaut for defaming Bollywood, portraying people working in it in a bad light with claims of nepotism, drug addiction, communal bias, attempting to create a rift between artistes of different communities, insulting religions on social media and through public statements. Another FIR was filed by a city-based lawyer for allegedly posting a "malicious" tweet against the judiciary. Later, Ranaut and her sister Rangoli Chandel moved the Bombay High Court seeking to quash the FIRs filed against them.
In May 2021, X (formerly known as Twitter) suspended Ranaut's account for repeated violations of rules, specifically its "Hateful Conduct and Abusive Behaviour policy.
Following her Padma Shri honour, she at an event said the independence India obtained in 1947 was "bheek" (alms) and that the country truly became free in 2014, in reference to the BJP coming to power at the Centre under Narendra Modi.
The statement was strongly condemned and various organisations demanded the revocation of her civilian award.
Elections 2024
In March this year, Ranaut, 37, announced her candidacy for the Lok Sabha elections from Mandi constituency of Himachal Pradesh. The constituency went to polls in Phase 7 on June 1.
She won the Mandi seat with 537,022 votes, defeating the Congress candidate Vikramaditya Singh by 74,755 votes.
Ranaut's great-grandfather, Sarju Singh Ranaut, was a Congress MLA.