Shatrughan Sinha has won the Asansol seat in West Bengal by a jaw-dropping 63,000 votes defeating Surinderjeet Singh Ahluwalia of BJP. I caught up with my dear friend hours after the resounding victory. In spite of hundreds of fans, friends and wellwishers claiming his attention he spoke, rather shouted, to me defeating the din over his electoral win. “I am elated. I am also sad to see the shocking numbers for the BJP. Subhash, it is the triumph of honesty over dishonesty. Yeh sachchai kee jeet hai. We have a tradition in cinema of truth conquering lies. That applies to life and politics.”
Did he expect to win by such a wide margin? “The margin of victory did surprise and reassure me. I am elated, relieved, thankful to God for allowing me to remain politically relevant after so many years. I also want to thank Miss Mamata Banerjee for her faith in me.
About the jibes over being an ‘outsider’ in Bengal,the irrepressible Mr Sinha quips, “The last time I checked the map , West Bengal was very much part of India. If I am Bengal’s Babu Moshai now, I am also a Bihari Babu at heart and will remain one. We politicians must stop playing this game of divisive politics . There is no ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ in politics. It’s just good and bad administration. Again I will draw a parallel with cinema: there is Good Cinema and Bad Cinema. Good Cinema works. By voting in such massive numbers for me the people of Asansol have clearly proved their mandate is for good clean governance.”
With the BJP’s expected landslide proving to be a pie in the sky in current Lok Sabha elections, Shatrughan Sinha is not happy. “I cannot gloat over this.I was a proud member of the party until I could see things going drastically wrong in the workings and the targets of the Party. It is sad for me to see the Bharatiya Janata Party being forced to climb down from its high horse to confront reality. As I said , the politics of divisiveness won’t work. The junta is too clever not to see through it.The time for complacency is over for the BJP.”