Shatrughan Sinha is a born rebel. In reel life, as well as real life
At the age of 80, the actor-turned-six-term MP (including his Rajya Sabha tenure twice), the veteran parliamentarian was rumoured to have turned rebellion and planning a ‘ghar wapsi’ by crossing over the fence for greener pastures, or, to be more precise, a saffron one.
“Agar sach kehna bagawat hai, toh samjho hum bhi baagi hain,” (If speaking the truth is rebellion, then, yes, I am a rebel). I am notorious for being too outspoken, too frank. I am known to call a spade a spade, without worrying about its repercussions,” said Shatru, whose praise for the Prime Minister Narendra Modi led rumour mills abuzz with the theory that Bihari Babu was among the 19 Trinamool Congress MPs, who have revolted against Mamata and was planning to dump the TMC and join the saffron brigade.
“Modi is your Prime Minister, my Prime Minister and everyone’s PM. If he has completed an uninterrupted 12 year in office as a PM, what wrong did I commit in showering encomiums on a towering leader,” said Shatru, heaping showers of praise on the leader of the party he left lock, stock and ‘apparel’ seven years back.
“But at the same time, let me clarify the rumours floating about me. Mamata Didi was one leader who stood by me when I was passing through a lean phase (when I was defeated from Patna Sahib in 2019 on a Congress ticket). It was she who made me fight a byelection from Asansol from where I won with a record margin and continued my winning spree in 2024 from there. In this hour of crisis, when many stalwarts are deserting Mamata Didi, I am going to stand by her like a rock. She is a Bengal tigress and will bounce back in no time if we all stand by her during her difficult times,” Shatru cleared the air and put a lid on his defection.
REBEL WITH A CAUSE
This is not the first time that Shatru has turned a rebel. In 1979, during the shooting of Yash Chopra’s Kala Patthar, Shatru turned rebellion when his role was ‘diminished’ reportedly at the behest of his then rival, and a superstar by then, Amitabh Bachchan. This led to an end of their ‘Dostana’ (friendship) which started with ‘Bombay to Goa’ and ended up with Manmohan Desai’s ‘Naseeb’. So much so, that Shatrughan was not even invited by Big B for the Abhishek Bachchan-Aishwarya Rai wedding.
REAL VS REEL
In real life too, just like his reel life, Shatru turned a BJP rebellion after winning the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Patna, his home turf, as a BJP candidate.
A protege of LK Advani, Shatru started targeting Modi and Amit Shah, both the top leaders by tweeting about BJP that it was “a one-man army and two-men party”. This did not go down well with either Modi or Shah.
Modi, who abhors criticism, threw Shatrughan out of the saffron camp. Shatru eventually changed colours and started singing paeans to Rahul Gandhi who ensured Bihari Babu gets a Congress ticket from his home town Patna during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
But this time Lady-luck did not smile on Shatru as he was defeated by BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad, former Union Law Minister and Shatru’s erstwhile colleague from the saffron camp.
It was during this lean phase when Mamata came as his saviour and asked Bihari Babu to shift his base from Bihar to Bengal. She asked him to contest a bypoll from Asansol (in West Bengal) in 2022, a seat vacated after BJP’s MP Babul Supriyo, a former singer, resigned as a Lok Sabha member before joining Trinamool Congress. Backed by the TMC support, Shatru romped home from a constituency which had a sizeable presence of Biharis too, as Asansol shares its border with Bihar and Jharkhand (earlier part of undivided Bihar).
