Newsmaker: Divya Spandana (Ramya)

Resilient in the face of controversies

Kannada actor-turned-politician Divya Spandana, better known by her stage name of Ramya (given during the shoot of her debut movie, Abhi, in 2003), is the latest to be threatened with sedition.

She'd said: "…Minister Manohar Parrikar said 'Going to Pakistan is like going to hell'. It is nothing like that. People there are just like us and there is no difference. They treated us very well…" The comment was based on her experience while attending the Saarc Youth Parliamentarians' Conference in Islamabad.

There were "postcard" protests in the immediate aftermath, asking the actor to "shift to Pakistan". And, a lawyer filed a plea in a court in Kodagu district of Karnataka, asking a case be filed under Section 124 A of the penal code. The plea accuses Ramya of "insulting India" by "appreciating Pakistan, which is a traditional enemy of India".

The actor has refused to apologise and in this she has been supported by the state unit of her party, the Congress. She entered electoral politics just about five years ago but the 35-year-old has been dogged by controversies. In 2011, following the advice of her political mentor, D K Shivakumar, and her foster father, the late R T Narayan, she joined the Youth Congress. Just before joining the party, she had been involved in a spat with a producer and the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce had banned her from films for a year. However, this was revoked soon after.

In fact, her decision to join politics had come as a surprise, considering her success on screen. It was a meeting with Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi that convinced her.

In 2013, she was asked by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to contest the by-election to the Mandya Lok Sabha constituency, which she won. However, tragedy struck on the day she filed her nomination, as Narayan, a confidant of former chief minister S M Krishna, died that day of a heart attack. Images of an inconsolable Ramya campaigning in Mandya alongside Congress heavyweights such as filmstar and former state housing minister M H Ambareesh were beamed across the constituency.

At the time, her victory over the Janata Dal's C S Puttaraju came as a surprise because of the dominance of the Vokkaliga caste in the region, which considers JD(S) chief H D Deve Gowda as its leader.

Ramya was expected to find the going tough in the election because of her refusal to reveal her caste in her election affidavit, though her mother, Ranjitha, is said to belong to the Vokkaliga caste.

After the subsequent Lok Sabha elections in 2014, Ramya was again in the middle of a controversy. Having lost the election to Puttaraju by 5,518 votes, she complained to the party high command that Ambareesh had jeopardised her campaign.

Ramya continues to enjoy support in Mandya, as was evident from the protest her supporters recently held, demanding she be given a state Cabinet position.