JFFS: Munnabhai 3 (Munna bana Leader)

Munna and Circuit are leading their lives jolly well- Breaking bones, breaking homes, abducting, and looting for money. They have just one rule- that they won’t harm someone who they feel is innocent. And this rule makes it very tough for powerful men in the city to get them to do some of the work they desire them to do. Apart from their more action oriented business, Munna and his aides also own a café that is popular amongst youngsters and common people of their area. It is in this café that Munna spots Sneha and falls hopelessly in love with her.

Sneha frequents the café with a friend of hers. Soon Munna stars to follow Sneha around in the city- like a teenager tracking his crush. He learns that she is a worker for a popular political party Jan Sevak Dal (JSD) and that she is in charge of campaigning and promotions for the party in Munna’s area. To woo her, Munna abandons his ‘real’ business and he and Circuit go and volunteer for the Party Sneha works for. Munna promises Sneha that her party would get the maximum votes in the area, and for ensuring the same he starts going from home to home to promoting the party and its manifesto. Munna enjoys tremendous goodwill in the area because of his warm and helpful nature. However he finds it tough to hide his real ‘business’ from Sneha as she starts to accompany him door to door. Circuit and his other cronies start to visit the homes at night to warn their residents of not revealing Munna’s true nature of work in front of Sneha the next day when she and Munna visit them.

With the help of their efforts JSD MLA wins the elections from their area, and in fact gets record number of votes. Pleased with the efforts, Sneha takes them to meet the party MLA who had expressed to her the wish thanking Munna personally. Along with the party MLA, there are many other important people in the MLA’s house, including the state party head who recognizes Munna as someone who had once refused to do some work for him. There, he asks Munna and his friends to work for the party in the central assembly elections four months away. Although not wanting to do it in the least, Munna agrees to their request on Sneha’s behest. As a part of the Central Assembly Election campaign for JSD, Munna and Circuit start a journey of travelling across cities and towns and villages in western India. Accompanied by Sneha, they visit hundreds of homes and meet thousands of people urging them to vote for JSD. But for Munna, the whole initiative takes a drastic turn when he meets SUNIL in one of the villages.

Sunil is a highly educated city fellow who had returned from US after completing his studies to start an NGO that catered to health, education, and sanitation issues in the heartlands of the country. Like the JSD party workers, he too is in the middle of an extensive travel assignment, but he is doing it to map the kind of issues that are plaguing the people in the villages so that he can direct his efforts more effectively. When he meets Munna and Sneha and learns about their campaigning, he decides to club his travel with their travel, on the pretext of having some company while he does his job.

Meanwhile Munna starts getting some instructions which don’t make moral sense to him. At the same time, pushed and apprised by Sunil, he starts seeing their tour in a whole new light altogether. He starts seeing the massive loopholes in the system, the massive negligence shown by the administration, the plights of the people, the exploitation, the disregard for law and order. After seeing all this, it becomes more and more difficult for him to ask people for votes. Sneha tries to tell him that nothing can be changed, and that such things are part and parcel of the system. Munna challenges her that it can be changed, and he would do it himself. He asks her for her support. But she refuses…

Munna returns to Mumbai and along with Circuit, and with the support of Sunil, decides to take the plunge and fight the elections as an independent candidate from his area. Sunil however tells him that this decision of his’, to fight the elections from his own area, makes no sense as people anyway love him and would vote for him and that it would defeat the purpose of the whole exercise. Munna then tells him that he would contest the elections from any region that Sunil chooses. Sunil chooses one of the most underdeveloped constituencies of the state, which has seen JSD rule it for the past 30 years.

Munna and Circuit relocate to the particular constituency and set-up their office there. Sunil joins them as a consultant. With the help of a corporate friend of his’ who provides them support (as a part of the CSR function of the corporate) they change the face of the entire area. Just as they start generating a lot of goodwill amongst the people, the JSD team arrives in the area with their workers (Sneha among them) and their leader.

There begins a battle of speeches- The seasoned JSD leader vs. Munna- the thug with a heart… The keenly contested battle catches the fancy of the media too, and the work that Munna and his friends do with the help of Sunil for the area starts getting showcased on TV channels all over. The little constituency becomes the center of attraction for the entire electoral campaign in the state… Meanwhile Sneha tries to meet Munna, but he refuses her this time round.

The D-day comes, and the area sees a huge turnout at the polling booths. Circuit and his men scatter all across the polling centers with the aim of preventing any frivolous act. Munna himself goes to cast his vote, and spots Sneha inside the polling booth. She manages to convey to him that she had voted for him, and not for her own party JSD. The results are declared a few days later and Munna unexpectedly loses the elections. It comes as a shock to everyone. But someone realizes that that there was another candidate with Munna’s name planted by the opposition party as an independent candidate, and hence the votes for him got divided and the incumbent player emerged the winner.

But Munna, despite losing, considers his objective achieved. The area had been completely transformed by him in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of civic amenities, health, education, and sanitation. And all it had taken him was thinking straight and thinking from the heart. Sunil tries to convince Munna about continuing in active politics, but Munna declines the offer. He moves back to the café, his people, and his area- with his love along his side.