/> It's the best-kept cinema-into-politics secret. But the news has filtered out from on-location in Udaipur where director Ishraq Shah recently shot a long schedule of his political thriller Ek Bura Aadmi.The film's protagonist played by Raghuvir Yadav is modeled entirely on Anna Hazare.

Says a source from on location, "Raghuvir Yadav is most definitely playing Anna Hazare.The character is supposed to be a grassroot-level social worker who launches into non-election politics, refuses to contest elections and leads the people into a state of collective protest with an andolan called Bharat Jaago.Arunodoy Singh plays his favourite pupil and protégée who takes Yadav's movement forward."

Apparently the actual identity of the character Raghuvir Yadav is playing was exposed when the director Ishraq Shah shot a fast-unto-death sequence with Yadav replicating the one that Anna Hazare had undertaken in April.

The reticent director who has acquired his strong sense of righteousness regarding Indian politics from his mentor Gulzar, is hesitant to admit Yadav's kinship to Anna Hazare.

"I can only tell you that Raghurvirji plays a social activist whose aversion to active politics causes the nation's collective conscience to awaken. This is a man whose lack of cynicism about honesty in politics cannot be taken lightly.

He supports only the poor and downtrodden, favours privatization and opposes the politics of reservation.Whether he is Anna Hazare or not I'd like to keep to myself until my film is released."

Apparently there have already been not-so-discreet inquiries about the striking similarities between Yadav's character and Anna Hazare. Since the public protest sequences were shot on outdoor locations in and around Udaipur keeping the content s a secret was impossible.

Says the director, "My film is set in a kasba, a small North Indian town like Varanasi where I grew up.Unlike other recent films set in thise areas (Omkara, Dabangg) my film is not about the crminalization of politics. This is the other side of small-town politics, the humane side where the candle of idealism still burns somewhere within the people."

Ishraq couldn't shoot in his home-town Varanasi for practical reasons. "I had been there recently as an associate-director on a Bhojpuri film that Neetu Chandra has produced for her brother. It was impossible to contain the crowds on location. In Ek Bura Aadmi the politics of outdoor shooting is even more complicated.I couldn't take a risk."

Interestingly Ishraq earlier directed a mythological Jai Santioshi Maa.

"Isn't that too about a leader of and for the masses?" Ishraq reasons.

An interesting sidelight. Arunodoy Singh who plays the Anna Hazare-like character's protégée comes from a family of politicians closely linked to the Congress. His grandfather was the late Arun Singh.