Actor-Politician Shatrughan Sinha, on Monday, 14 March, revealed that he has joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on the invitation of West Bengal (WB) Chief Minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee. On Sunday, the 76-year-old actor was named TMC's candidate for the Lok Sabha by-elections from Asansol.
"I have joined the Trinamool Congress on the invitation of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the most talked-about, popular leader of the masses in the true sense. I hope to strengthen the voice of the opposition using the pool of talent that the Trinamool Congress has," he told NDTV in an interview.
Sinha said his goal is to see how he can serve the people of Asansol and West Bengal and live up to the people's expectations.
Talking about the Congress, he said, "I don't want to complain about anybody at this time nor do I want to get into what happened, what did not happen, what should have happened, what they said, what they did."
'How Can Anybody Call me An Outsider?'
When asked if he thought that Congress could no longer play the role of the opposition effectively, he said, "People who are not able to play the role of a strong opposition will have to do it tomorrow if not today."
He said 'they saw' what happened in the result of the recently concluded Assembly elections and the ones held earlier.
Sinha said Banerjee managed to show the way by beating the 'dhan shakti' (money power) of the BJP with 'jan shakti' (people power) and added that she had become the face of an alternative.
Sinha went on to say that people were looking at Banerjee with hope and that TMC was on the cusp of becoming a national opposition force.
Sinha had served as minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. Later, he joined the Congress and fought from his hometown Patna Sahib Lok Sabha constituency in 2019. In the last parliamentary election, he lost to former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
On being called an outsider by opponents, Sinha said, "How can anybody call me an 'outsider'? Like my 'janmabhoomi' (birthplace) Bihar, Bengal has always been my weakness."
He said he had done several movies, including the national award-winning film 'Antor Koli Jatra' in Bangla language, reported PTI.
Sinha said Asansol has a cosmopolitan population where there are many citizens from Bihar and Jharkhand.
"If I am called an 'outsider' in Asansol, will you say the same for the Prime Minister contesting election from Varanasi?" he said.
(With inputs from NDTV and PTI.)
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