Suresh Gopi gets his 66th birthday gift early, sworn in as Union Minister

A few weeks before his 66th birthday, actor-turned-BJP leader Suresh Gopi, who won a stunning victory in the Thrissur constituency to give his party its first-ever Lok Sabha seat from Kerala, was sworn in as a Union Minister in the 3rd Prime Minister Narendra Modi government on Sunday.

With over 250 films under his belt in a career which began in the mid-1980s and got him the tag of the "angry young man of Malayalam films", he went on to collect the best actor award at both the state and national level once each.

Gopi’s tryst with politics began with his closeness to the legendary four-time Congress Chief Minister K. Karunakaran and a few times, his name was in the reckoning as a Congress candidate in the Lok Sabha elections and then for a Rajya Sabha berth, but on both occasions, it failed to materialise. After Karunakaran bowed out of active politics and Oommen Chandy came in, but Gopi never enjoyed the same chemistry with him and bid goodbye to the Congress.

It was in 2014 that he got a surprise invite from PM-in-waiting Narendra Modi and from that day onwards, there was a new chemistry between the two, culminating - a decade later - in a call summoning him to Delhi.

His closeness with PM Modi who he terms his "political god" got closer during the term of Gopi’s term as a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha. While many thought that Gopi’s political career had ended after his term finished and he lost the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2021 Assembly polls from Thrissur, Gopi was not one to sit idle, telling IANS that no one should forget that the BJP has invested in him and hence, he has a responsibility and was ready to do whatever the party asks him.

During the fag end of 2023, it was more or less clear that the BJP would field Gopi from Thrissur and it became more definite when Modi flew down to attend his elder daughter’s wedding at the famed Sree Krishna temple at Guruvayoor. With Gopi staying put at Thrissur since January, he managed to get an early start to his election campaign and remained unfazed when it was revealed he would face veteran politicians - sitting Congress MP from Vadakara K. Muraleedharan and former State Minister and popular CPI leader V.S. Sunil Kumar. He ultimately floored both to win the seat by over 72,000 votes.

On Sunday, Gopi, who will turn 66 on June 26, came out of his house in the morning and got into his car to rush to the airport, telling the waiting media that he was leaving for Delhi. "He (PM Modi) decided and I am obeying. He has asked me to reach Delhi," he said, replying: "I don’t know anything else", to query whether he would be a cabinet minister.