Bhojpuri film city to be set up in Gorakhpur if voted to power, says BJP candidate Ravi Kishan

Ravi Kishan, the BJP candidate for its Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat, announced on Friday that youngsters who aspire to take up a career in films will no longer have to travel to Mumbai as the Bhojpuri actor would set up a ‘Bhojpuri film city’ in Gorakhpur.

The BJP has pitted the popular Bhojpuri actor against Samajwadi Party's Ram Bhuwal Nishad from the seat.

The Bhojpuri actor-turned-politician added that his idea of setting up the Bhojpuri film city is so that the youth of the city find a means of pursuing their dreams.

“It will come up in the heart of the city so that youths can pursue their dreams of earning name and fame in the film industry," he said.

He revealed that Rs 500 crore has already been issued by the state for the development of the Bhojpuri film city.

"The MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) to set up a Bhojpuri film city in a 150-acre area with Rs 500 crore has already been signed by the state government," Kishan told reporters at the BJP's Beniganj office.

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Showing confidence in his party, Kishan claimed that the BJP will register ‘a “historic” win from the land of Baba Gorakhnath and Adityanath’ by securing around 73 seats in the state.

"I will serve the people of Gorakhpur by keeping the khanrau (wooden slipper) of Yogiji," he pledged.

A seat which has been CM Yogi Adityanath's bastion since 1998 for five terms, before he vacated the seat to take the chief ministerial chair. However, following that, Gorakhpur, a prestigious constituency for the BJP was then filled by a Samajwadi Party leader in alliance with BSP.

The party also declared sitting MP Sanjay Nishad as its candidate from Sant Kabir Nagar by dropping Sharad Tripathi, who had beaten a local BJP MLA with shoes. Nishad had won the Gorakhpur seat in a bypoll as the SP candidate and he was supported by the BSP, under the grand alliance between the two parties.

An original native of Jaunpur with roots in Gorakhpur's Moonkhar village, the BJP Lok Sabha candidate said that he would file his nomination papers at the Gorakhnath temple on April 23. He also mentioned that while visiting the temple, he possibly be accompanied by the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

(With PTI inputs)