| Kunal Singh | |
| Birth Name: | Kunal Singh Yadav |
| Nationality: | Indian |
| Years Active: | 1979–present |
| Spouse: | Arati Bhattacharya |
| Father: | Buddhadev Singh |
| Honours: | Rashtrakavi Dinkar Award (2012) |
Kunal Singh Yadav is an Indian actor associated with Bhojpuri cinema. Also referred to as Amitabh Bachchan of Bhojpuri Cinema because of his dominance on Bhojpuri cinema and also as Jitendra of Bhojpuri cinema because of his remarkable resemblance with the bollywood actor Jitendra, Kunal, in his four-decade long career, has acted in more than 250 movies.[1] For his contributions to cinema, he was awarded the Rashtrakavi Dinkar Award in 2012 by Pranab Mukherjee.[2]
Kunal was born in a 1955 in a Yadav family. His father Buddhadev Singh was a senior Congress leader.[3] He has remarkable resemblance with the bollywood actor Jeetendra. In his childhood he was asked to read out from the script of a play named Jantantra Zindabad, for his bad performance in the auditon the director complemented that "acting is not his cup of tea". After this incident he decided to become an actor. He is married to Bengali actress Arati Bhattacharya.
He made his acting debut with the Hindi film Kal Hamara Hai (1980) directed by Girish Ranjan. He played the role of a Tonga Drive in that film. It did a good business in the theatres of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. After this film he started getting many offers for Bhojpuri films. His first major success in Bhojpuri was Dharti Maiyaa (1981), in which he played the role of a wayward youth. His biggest hit Ganga Kinare Mora Gaon was released 1983. In a theatre of Varanasi it ran for 16 months. His Ram Jaisan Bhaiyaa Hamar ran for 50 days in Kishanganj and broke the record held by Ram Teri Ganga Maili In 2007, he acted with Amitabh Bachchan and Mithun Chakraborty in the Bhojpuri film Gangotri.[4] His first film in 2022 was Aashiqui starring Khesari Lal Yadav and Amrapali Dubey.[5]
| Year | Film | Role | Co-stars | Director | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Dharti Maiya | Padma KhannaGauri Khurana | Qamar Marvi | |||
| 1983 | Ganga Kinare Mora Gaon | |||||
| Hamar Bhauji | Jayshree T. | |||||
| 1985 | Bihari Babu | Shatrughan SinhaAlpana Goswami | Dilip Bose | |||
| 1986 | Dulha Ganga Paar ke | Gauri Khurana | Rajkumar Sharma | |||
| Beti Udhaar ke | ||||||
| "Sohag Bindiya" | Rajni Sharma | |||||
| 1988 | Dagabaz Balma | Sahila Chadha,Padma Khanna,Jayshree T. | Arati Bhattacharya | |||
| 1989 | Hamaar Dulha | AanchalSeema Deo | Chhotu Purniyawala | |||
| 2005 | Dulha Milal Dildar | |||||
| 2022 | Aashiqui | Satish Dubey | Khesari Lal Yadav Amrapali Dubey | Parag Patil | ||
| 2023 | Aangan Ki Lakshmi | Rani ChatterjeeRinku Ghosh | Anil Nainan | First Look Out[6] | ||
| 2024 | Rang De Basanti | Khesari Lal YadavRati Pandey | Premanshu Singh | [7] |
| Year | Film | Role | Co-stars | Director | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Kal Hamara Hai | Padma Khanna, Govardhan Asrani, Arati Bhattacharya, A. K. Hangal, Jayshree T. | Girish Ranjan | |||
| 2023 | The Rise of Sudarshan Chakra | Yashpal Sharma (actor),Milind Gunaji,Preeti Jhangiani,Rakesh Bedi,Junior Mehmood | Anil Kulchainiya | [8] |
He contested election in 2014 from Patna Sahib as a Congress Candidate against Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Shatrughan Sinha and lost the battle.[9] [10] [11] [12]
For his contributions to cinema, he was awarded the Rashtrakavi Dinkar Award in 2012 by Pranab Mukherjee