The superstar who fell short: Will Suresh Gopi finally win for the BJP in Kerala?

Towards the end of the 1980s, a decade dubbed fondly as the golden age of Malayalam cinema for its slew of well-crafted, unconventional films and talent-spotting, two actors stood tall – Mohanlal and Mammootty. While the Big Ms earned the epithet of superstars, a budding actor with lofty dreams was slowly making his way to the top.

That was Suresh Gopi. Already part of two films that made the Big Ms superstars – Mohanlal’s Rajavinte Makan (1986) and Mammootty’s New Delhi (1987) – the actor did not mind playing second fiddle to them. Suresh Gopi was candid enough to admit as much in a 1988 interview. A year later he made his debuts in Hindi, Telugu and Kannada when New Delhi, a political thriller by Joshiy, was remade. 

It took a few more years for Suresh Gopi to earn stardom, playing mass heroes mouthing lengthy monologues and dramatically breaking the fourth wall in slow motion before the screens flashed intermission.

But despite many hits his career never reached the heights seen by the Ms, who regularly picked up awards and were seen as the commercial cornerstones of the hero-driven Malayalam film industry. In between, he got married to singer Radhika and also suffered a personal tragedy when his daughter died in an accident at the age of one and a half.

While his films were immensely popular, Suresh Gopi couldn’t bag a national or state award until the 1997 Kaliyattam, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello by Jayaraj. The number of films began to taper off after 1993 though he had several hits throughout the decade.

In 2016 he shifted gears and became a politician after a surprise nomination to the Rajya Sabha by Prime Minister Narendra Modi a month before Kerala went to polls. Gopi then joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, contested two elections unsuccessfully and is now fighting his third electoral battle from Thrissur, the cultural capital of Kerala. 

The state has 140 Assembly constituencies and yet the BJP could win a seat here only once – in 2016 at Nemom in Thiruvananthapuram, the same year Gopi was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Suresh Gopi’s candidature in Thrissur, in the 2019 general elections and in the 2021 assembly polls, gave the saffron party a huge upswing in vote share besides frenzied media attention. Ahead of elections Suresh Gopi raised the stakes through grandiose statements on political heavy lifting – of snatching Thrissur from his opponents – but could bring the barbell only up to his chest.

His third attempt to lift Thrissur is being keenly watched nationally. Beyond his celebrity appeal, the central leadership’s interest in Thrissur has been made obvious through the multiple visits made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who led the ceremony of giving away the bride’s hand when Suresh Gopi’s daughter Bhagya got married in Guruvayoor in January.

Early days

In August 1988, when Suresh Gopi spoke to Chalachithram Weekly magazine about playing second fiddle to the Big Ms, it was still early days for him. He had played the role of Mohanlal’s right-hand man in Rajavinte Makan, a movie that would turn 26-year-old Mohanlal into a force to reckon with. Before that, Gopi played a few forgettable characters in movies like TP Balagopalan MA and Onnu Muthal Poojyam Vare. 

Suresh Gopi, born in 1958, debuted as a child artist with late actor Sathyan in Odayil Ninnu (1965). “He may have appeared in Odayil Ninnu because of his father’s connection to films, as a distributor,” says a source in the industry. After the early debut, Gopi finished school and went to college before making his next appearance in a film. He took his Bachelors of Science in Zoology and his Masters in Literature, both from the Fatima College in Kollam. 

As a graduate student, he was a leader of the Students Federation of India, the students wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), presently in power in Kerala. He was part of the Save Silent Valley movement of the late 1970s, led by scientists and cultural icons like Sugathakumari against a proposed hydroelectric project in a tropical rain forest in Palakkad.

“I wrote to [Prime Minister] Indira Gandhi: Dear mother, declare Silent Valley a national park. This was in 1979 and I got a reply too. Three years later she did that [abandoned the project],” Suresh Gopi once told an interviewer.

After college, Suresh Gopi also pursued the dream of clearing the civil service exams. He took them twice and was better prepared during round two, but by then his schedule was packed with films and he couldn’t give it a try. His desire to be an IPS officer was later satiated by a slew of police dramas by Shaji Kailas that earned him a superstar status in the 90s. 

Short-lived superstardom

Cinema did not come easily to him. Poster designer and screenwriter ‘Gayathri’ Ashokan remembers receiving the photographs of a young man from the makers of Onnu Muthal Poojyam Vare one day. “I knew that [scriptwriter] Dennis Joseph and director Thampy Kannanthanam were looking for a new person to play a sidekick to Mohanlal’s character in Rajavinte Makan. I sent them the photos and they were immediately impressed.”

After that, Suresh Gopi began appearing in supporting character roles, teaming up with Mohanlal (Vazhiyorakazchakal, January Oru Orma, Irupatham Noottandu) or Mammootty (New Delhi, 1921, Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha). In the 1988 interview we began this story with, Gopi sounded surprisingly mature, saying that he was in that stage of his career where he could not dare to play solo lead unless it was with established directors, and would otherwise leave the job to the two Ms. 

In the early 90s, he began appearing in action films or thrillers, The News by Shaji Kailas, one of the first among them. Recognised for his on-screen diction, he was cast as characters with sharp dialogues and lengthy monologues, paving the way for his stardom. Journalist-scriptwriter Ranji Panicker penned lengthy repartees, peppered with high-flown English monologues for Suresh Gopi, which the actor revelled in. Director Shaji Kailas churned out a series of action movies with him in the lead. Thalasthanam, Ekalavyan, Commissioner, Mafia, Rudraksham and FIR all came out within a span of a few years. Gopi became an action hero in Malayalam cinema, a space that remained vacant after the death of actor Jayan.

The 1997 movie Kaliyattam, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello by director Jayaraj, was a world away from the movies Suresh Gopi did in those days. The actor had a makeover. He shaved off his moustache and allowed pockmarks on his face – leftovers of smallpox and burn injuries of a Theyyam artist. The film had none of the angry man diatribes that Ranji Panicker movies presented him with. 

But perhaps his police officer characters, like the famous Bharathchandran IPS from Commissioner who fought corruption, must have influenced him, Jayaraj tells us. He would not be far off. Suresh Gopi said in a 2005 interview to Vanitha Magazine that he did not know politics before he did Thalasthanam (the first of his action hero roles, followed by the likes of Commissioner where he fought a corrupt establishment). He said the traits of the characters he essayed became part of his nature. More interestingly he said in the same interview that no party could accept him, because he would always be on the side of the people, and that the party that offers him a seat will repent. 

There is a story that it was Mammootty who attached the superstar label to Suresh Gopi after the success of the film Commissioner. It would seem Mammootty had a bigger role to play in his superstardom. The character that made Gopi a star overnight, Madhav IPS in Ekalavyan, was in fact first offered to Mammootty, and Gopi was to play his sidekick. When Mammootty rejected the offer, Gopi became the lead and Siddique his sidekick. The film became a superhit, running for more than 200 days.

There are reports of a Hindutva group attacking film theatres at the time of Ekalavyan’s release, for portraying Hindu godmen in a poor light. 

The superstardom however did not last long. Film critic CS Venkiteswaran attributes it to the wave of new generation cinema that breezed into the late 2000s. “The roles he was known for – the alpha male kind – also became redundant, obsolete. He switched from playing the tough upright bureaucrat to elderly brother roles,” he says.  

Films stitched out of the male-centric, dialogue-driven fabric were worn out by the late 90s and early 2000s. All three superstars – the big Ms and Gopi – suffered a jolt. But the senior two were labelled as megastars while Gopi’s recognition as a star faded. 

“Mammootty and Mohanlal displayed a range and versatility which Gopi sadly could not bring to the screen. He guaranteed moderate success and was reliable as a supporting actor. Nakulan in Manichitrathazhu, the father of Seirra in Notebook and Dennis in Summer in Bethlehem are some of the memorable roles. Unfortunately he was trapped in his own cliched gestures and mannerisms, usually a bane for an actor's growth,” says Janaky Sreedharan, professor at Calicut University, who writes on gender and cinema.

Journalist turned filmmaker Vidhu Vincent says Gopi was sidelined the way singers like Jayachandran and Markose were in the film music industry (KJ Yesudas was the uncrowned ruler of Malayalam film music for decades).

“It sort of explains his entry to politics in a way. He desired recognition, came close to attaining superstardom, and even when it touched him, it did not last long. The next option is politics, and the same kind of sidelining may recur in politics because he does not have the shrewdness it requires,” Vidhu says.

A college senior said that many of his classmates distanced themselves from Gopi after he joined the BJP and became “fully into Hindutva politics”. A similar remark was made by VV Rajesh, senior BJP leader in Kerala, about Suresh Gopi’s colleagues in the film industry distancing themselves from him when he joined the party, leading to loss of films. All of it changed later, Rajesh added, and Gopi got acceptance in the industry. 

Between 2012 and 2015, he hosted TV show Ningalkkum Aakaam Kodeeshwaran, modelled on Big B’s Kaun Banega Crorepati. After the film My God, released in December 2015, there was a four-year hiatus. In 2020, he staged a comeback through the film Varane Avashyamundu, produced by Mammooty’s son Dulquer Salmaan.

Politics in movies

Interestingly, in his earlier films, Gopi has on more than one occasion played the role of a communist or rebel. In 1921, a film based on the Mappila Riots of that year, Suresh Gopi played a nationalist rebel coming from a feudal family, alongside Mammootty. In Rakthasakshikal Zindabad, he played a Communist with Mohanlal. In Paithrukam, made by Jayaraj, he played an atheist Brahmin who denounces his caste and fights superstition (but the climax has him change his ways). “Though the character was totally against his beliefs, Suresh was quite ready to do the film,” Jayaraj says. 

In 2022, Suresh Gopi played the role of an army man perceived to be dead, returning to his hometown 19 years later, in a film called Mei Hoom Moosa. The movie released as his MP tenure ended had Suresh Gopi playing “the good Muslim” spouting lines like, ‘I’m not a Muslim who seeks heaven by killing others, but a Muslim who is ready to die for India’. The film was panned for projecting the Muslim stereotype and casting aspersions on the community as people who love Pakistan more and are ready to join the terrorist group ISIS, a view parroted by right wing Hindutva groups.

The Modi connection

In March 2014, a meeting happened in Ahmedabad. Narendra Modi, who was Gujarat chief minister, invited Suresh Gopi over. According to the actor, Modi had called him after noticing his interests in social causes and environment. Modi chatted with him for two hours and 17 minutes.

This was the time the BJP was looking for faces in Kerala. Actor Mohanlal had been approached multiple times by then, but he wasn’t interested in electoral politics. The meeting between Modi and Suresh Gopi was ahead of the 2014 general elections that the BJP would win. That year, Suresh Gopi had campaigned for his co-actor, the late Innocent, who contested as an independent candidate from Chalakudy, backed by the CPIM.

Gopi had not decided to join the BJP when he met Modi, he said once, but after the Kerala government’s push for the Aranmula airport, considered harmful for the environment, he had a change of heart. The BJP had opposed the airport after local Hindu groups protested against it, claiming it would violate the sanctity of nearby temples. 

It took a couple more years for Gopi to join the BJP. He joined the party in 2016, a few months after his nomination as a member of the Rajya Sabha. “We came to know of his interest when he met Narendra Modi in Gujarat prior to the 2014 elections,” says VV Rajesh.

Considered soft-spoken and gentle, Gopi’s plunge into politics surprised many of his friends and colleagues.  

“I did not think he had a consistent political stand. At times he supported VS Achuthanandan and at other times K Karunakaran – stalwarts of their respective parties, the CPIM and the Congress. The last time we did a film – in 2009 – I didn’t think he had an affiliation to the BJP. It was a metamorphosis we did not expect,” says director B Unnikrishnan.

Suresh Gopi has said that he was handpicked by Modi. “It was on March 1, 2014 that I met Narendra Modi for the first time. For a year before that, they sent feelers through several people seeking a meeting. But I had no such desire to enter politics at the time. Even when I went to meet him, it was after an assurance that I could visit as a non-political entity,” Gopi said in an interview with IE Malayalam in 2018.

Modi’s special interest in Gopi resurfaced in 2024 when the prime minister flew down to attend the wedding of his daughter Bhagya in Guruvayur.

As parliamentarian

Suresh Gopi’s performance as a Rajya Sabha MP has been dismal, from the records, and the most ‘viral’ of his speeches in the Parliament is of the time Venkaiah Naidu, a former vice president, asked him if it was a mask or a beard he had on his face. He  replied that it was a beard, as part of his new look for a movie.

According to PRS Legislative Research, his track record shows below-average performance. Gopi’s attendance in the parliament is 74 percent when the average is 79, he has asked only 23 questions in six years whereas the average is 298. Drawing parallels, an X user pointed out that Sachin Tendulkar who had an eight percent attendance asked 22 questions, and John Brittas, an MP from Kerala, asked 306 questions in 2.5 years. Among the 23 questions, only a few cater to Kerala. 

Gopi’s score of debate attendance is also only 50 percent, when the average is 105.7, and he has never presented a private bill.

Gopi on issues of faith

Suresh Gopi has not, like the average rightwinger, made comments against minority religions, even while he speaks of his faith as a devout Hindu. However, his speech last year about praying to god to curse the non-believers of the world created a row before he added corrective disclaimers to it.  

Earlier in March, he supported the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, seen as discriminatory to Muslims and putting their citizenship at risk. “The CAA should anyway come, it is needed for the eradication of poverty. It is the country’s need and Kerala is part of the country,” Gopi said, while commenting on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s statement that Kerala would not implement it. It left people guessing about how the act would help in eradicating poverty.

During the 2019 elections, Gopi got into trouble for invoking the Sabarimala Temple issue (when briefly, women were allowed to enter the temple after a court verdict and the right-wing Hindutva groups had strongly opposed it) during his campaign, violating a poll directive of the Chief Election Officer. He had at the time said that the ‘brutal government would be voted out for their stance on Sabarimala’ and sought votes for himself, a move prohibited by the Election Commission.

Long before his political entry, Suresh has been quite expressive of his faith in religion. In the sets of Innale – a 1990 film directed by legendary filmmaker Padmarajan – Suresh spoke about a pilgrimage he planned to take across the country, that would end with a visit to the Mannarshala temple, famous for its ‘uruli kamazhthal’ ritual, performed by couples without children. Suresh was recently married and his declaration surprised his colleagues. One of them made him go on a wild goose chase for the ‘right’ kind of uruli, a traditional cooking utensil needed for the ritual.

“He would easily get tricked like that, and would also immediately react to things; quite a sensitive person. He says about my father that if [actor] Jayaram was a son to him, he was like his son-in-law. Achan always spoke of Radhika like a daughter,” says Ananthapadmanabhan, Padmarajan’s son. 

A flair for drama

An assistant director of a Suresh Gopi film recalled an instance of him taking offence at being chided for being late to a film shoot. The next morning, not waiting for the car sent for him, Gopi made a show of arriving in an auto rickshaw in the set, and announced, “now no one should complain that I was late.”

Actor Jayaram had once shared an anecdote of how Suresh Gopi became upset after late director Padmarajan, chided him during the shooting of Innale, and walked off to a nearby forest in a huff.

He continued with such ‘dramatic reactions’ in his political life, often landing in trouble. In a recent viral video, Suresh Gopi was seen reprimanding party workers for poor turnout of workers for a campaign meet. He threatened to leave Thrissur and go to Thiruvananthapuram to campaign for BJP candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar. In another video, he was heard talking about voters as ‘prajakal’ or subjects, terms used by a monarchy.

He lacks diplomacy vital for a politician, says political analyst J Prabhash. “I don’t think his transition from actor to politician is complete. The way he dealt with party workers shows a lack of political diplomacy and disconnect with those who work at the grassroot-level. He appears to keep his distance from the rank and file of the party while he may have contacts with the higher ups.”

Vidhu, who has engaged with Gopi as a journalist, also addresses Gopi’s lack of political tact, calling it his naivety. “He is not a political strategist or mastermind. Politicians go to work on the ground but he still thinks like a celebrity, he does not realise he has to go to the grassroot level.”

His gaffes too have not helped his image. In 2015, Suresh Gopi had supported the beef ban that was then imposed in Maharashtra, claiming that he had never had beef or cooked it at his house. However, someone dug out an earlier video where he is chatting on a radio show and speaking about eating beef continuously for days which resulted in a weight gain.

More recently, Suresh Gopi, who courted controversies for gifting a golden crown to Our Lady of Lourdes Metropolitan Cathedral in January this year, had a dressing-down from a parish priest in Thrissur when he went seeking votes. The priest questioned him about his silence on the attacks on Christians in Manipur and other issues concerning minorities. 

Suresh Gopi’s supporters were accused of exerting pressure on renowned Kathakali artist Kalamandalam Gopi to vote for him, with the "promise of a Padma award". Suresh Gopi brushed off the row and spoke of his acquaintance with ‘Gopi Asan’, after which the Kathakali veteran also said the actor was welcome to visit him.

The continuous drama, mostly triggered by Suresh Gopi’s proclivity to shoot off his mouth, appears to reflect the angry characters he is known for in cinema. “He seems to be using similar methods in politics, flaring up easily,” says Prabhash.

There have also been whispers of displeasure among the party cadres in Suresh Gopi’s dealings with local leaders and his candidacy. His interactions with party workers also appear limited. Rajesh says this could be because Suresh Gopi is a star and people may not know how to approach him. 

“Coming from cinema, he may have got a certain mileage as an actor but that will not be sufficient to win an election,” says J Prabhash. 

Unlike the neighbouring Tamil Nadu where popular film stars have become revered political leaders, Kerala’s voters have been reluctant to endorse celebrities. There are however exceptions. Late Innocent, who was elected MP from Chalakudy was one. Also, actors Mukesh, whose father was a theatre personality and founding member of CPI, and Ganesh Kumar, son of R Balakrishna Pillai, a leading politician. When the late KPAC Lalitha, another veteran actor, was once proposed as an LDF candidate for an Assembly election, party supporters opposed it and she backed out citing health reasons. This was despite the strong connections the theatre group KPAC had with the history of communist movement.

Suresh Gopi however had given no clue of his political ambitions until he crossed the peak days of his film career. There are stories of him having tried to join the CPI(M) in the early 2000s.  

“I worked with Suresh Gopi in films like Thoovalsparsham and Unnikrishnante Aadyathe Christmas. Later his image changed to that of an action hero, a genre that I had not specialised in,” says director Kamal, known for his romcoms and dramas. Kamal, who headed the government-run Kerala Chalachitra Academy between 2016 and 22, had on different occasions expressed in public platforms his disagreements with Suresh Gopi’s politics. 

In 2016, when Gopi became a Rajya Sabha member, Kamal stated publicly that he could only look at his friend with shame, for “becoming a slave to an advocate of genocide like Modi”. He also criticised Gopi after the actor expressed his wish to be born as a Brahmin in his next life. “I am ashamed that my friend, an artist, has turned into someone who can utter such obscenities as this. It shows his privileged caste sentiment, his hatred of other castes and religions, which is what happens to people who join the Sangh Parivar.”

Image of a philanthropist

Suresh Gopi’s friends and acquaintances, even when they are in disagreement with his politics, agree on one thing: the philanthropist in him. His penchant to donate for the needy began long before he became a politician, they said. The charity work was mostly done in the name of a trust formed in the name of Lakshmi, his late daughter. 

Vidhu speaks of an early experience in her career, when she did a news story about the dangerous state of a boat jetty in Kochi. Suresh Gopi had at the time – the early 2000s – contacted her seeking ways to make it better. “It was dangerous for children who boarded the boats everyday. The actor, still reeling from the shock of losing his baby girl, said that anything that affects kids worries him a lot,” she says. The baby girl, Suresh and Radhika’s firstborn Lakshmi, died in a car accident in 1992, when she was 18 months. 

Actor Jagadish said that it was his wife, the late Dr P Rema, who did the child’s postmortem examination. “He speaks about it when we meet, about how my wife took special care of the procedure and everything. He considered my wife as his sister.”

Vidhu says that Suresh Gopi diligently pursued the cause of the dilapidated boat jetty, contacting the Cochin Port Authority to ensure that it would be repaired. “I realised then that he was a humane person. I do not agree with the politics he chose to align with, but he has humanity,” Vidhu adds.

Suresh Gopi’s ‘humane side’ was revealed in the early 2000s, when he stepped out to hug two children Benson and Bensy affected by AIDS, to remove the stigma against the disease. 

His charitable traits were also on display while he hosted the show Ningalkkum Aakam Kodeeswaran. He promised money and help to the less privileged visitors of the show, who couldn't always win the amount they desired. This left a huge impression on the public. 

O Rajagopal, a BJP veteran in Kerala and the only one from the party to have secured an assembly seat in the state, says that public opinion about Suresh Gopi is good. “He does charity work, he builds homes and provides for the education of the poor. He is a social worker.”

Jagadish echoes the same sentiment. “He has done nice things, charity activities – he used to spend the amount he got from [hosting] Kodeeswaran for people suffering from diseases and were in need of money.” 

A blow to his image

Suresh Gopi’s image as a do-gooder suffered a blow recently, when a woman and her child with a rare disease sought his help for the child’s treatment and he retorted with a dismissive comment, asking them to go ask the help of Govindan Master. Govindan Master is how MV Govindan, the state secretary of the CPIM, is referred to, but the woman did not understand this. She had come from Coimbatore to Guruvayur where Gopi was attending a ceremony, after having seen his generous gestures in Kodeeswaran.

Gopi landed in a bigger mess last October when he kept his hand over a woman journalist’s shoulder forcefully, even after she pushed it away. She promptly filed a police complaint and Gopi was booked for sexual harassment. Gopi posted an apology note on Facebook, explaining his ‘fatherly intent’ and regret if the act hurt the woman. A section of social media users threw their weight behind him, while dissing the woman for months. 

He also lost his cool when another woman journalist asked him a question soon after. He made a show of it and touched a male reporter on his shoulders, asking sarcastically, “You are okay with this, right?” Both times, most of the male reporters surrounding him, laughed like it was a witty show Gopi had put on for them.

In his plea for anticipatory bail at the High Court, he submitted that the visuals of the incident show the complainant “made a calculated pre-meditated plan to create a narration of sexual harassment.”

The abduction and sexual assault of a female actor in a moving car in Kochi in February 2017 had divided the Malayalam film industry. The chism widened when actor Dileep was arrested as an accused who masterminded the case. Suresh Gopi however defended Dileep and condemned the demonstrations against him. Last year, he reiterated the stand, saying that he would not believe that either Dileep or Swapna Suresh (accused in the gold smuggling case of 2020) was guilty until the court said so. 

Dileep was an invitee for Suresh Gopi’s daughter’s wedding in Guruvayur where Narendra Modi was the chief guest.

Gopi had a different view in the case of the rape and murder of a young woman in Perumbavoor in 2016, hardly a year before the actor assault. At the time, he advocated more stringent means of punishment – no less than the ‘Saudi model’ – for rape crimes. 

Advantages of the ‘nice guy’ image

It would also be unwise for rival parties to brush him off Suresh Gopi as silly or clownish.  

“The rival parties should not underestimate the influence he has over people with his image of a good person. He has a large following among women voters. Another section is the ‘neutral voters’, who don’t follow a particular ideology and can swing either way. The general idea among these swing voters is that politicians are mostly corrupt and so they can vote for Suresh Gopi who is already rich and who seems nice, so will not go the same way as the others. Even in left-leaning families, the talk is that they would have voted for Suresh Gopi if he were not in the BJP,” says political analyst Goutham KA.

Among his colleagues and friends too, regardless of their political differences, the general consensus is that Suresh Gopi is a nice guy, and a good friend. Director Kamal who has spoken against Gopi’s politics on multiple occasions readily admits how friendly he has been, despite that. Gopi never reacted to Kamal’s outbursts against him, he says. 

Actor Ranjini also shares fond memories of Suresh Gopi. “I was the female lead in The News, which happened to be the first film he played the male lead in. I did not speak Malayalam at the time and he was always there to help in English,” says the actor, a Tamilian raised in Singapore. They worked together in films like Varnam, Kouthuka Varthakal, Orukkam and Thoovalsparsham.

He kept in touch through the years, she says, but she was surprised to hear about him entering politics. “We had never discussed politics before. I did not know he was interested in politics. He could do amazing things, but unfortunately, he is in the wrong party. Kerala is not prepared for the BJP,” she says. 

Many of his friends, colleagues and acquaintances that TNM spoke to say that they wished he did not enter politics, for different reasons. Kamal and B Unnikrishnan, film directors who appreciate the space that Gopi created for himself in Malayalam cinema, are sad that he moved away from films. “He has a lot more to do in cinema but wouldn't have time for it. This is my personal wish, I am no one to give him advice,” Kamal says. B Unnikrishnan says that there are characters that only Suresh Gopi could do and if he had stood firmly in films, he had a space there. 

For friends, like actor Ravi Krishnan, Suresh Gopi is too much of a nice guy to be in politics. He echoed the words of Vidhu, who opined that he did not have the shrewdness to be a politician. 

Sensitive in nature, dramatic in demeanour, prone to outbursts of anger, and lacking in shrewdness, Suresh Gopi appears as a fledgling politician who is yet to master the act. A low man on the totem pole, politics is in a way his second attempt at becoming a megastar, a crown denied to him in cinema. He has already made two attempts and if he fails a third time, Suresh Gopi may have to take the long walk back to the dressing room.

This report was republished from The News Minute as part of The News Minute-Newslaundry alliance. It has been lightly edited for style and clarity. Read about our partnership here and become a TNM Member here.