'The politics of divisiveness won't work.'
'The janta is too clever not to see through it.'
Shatrughan Sinha won the Asansol seat in West Bengal by 63,000 votes defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party's Surinderjeet Singh Ahluwalia.
"I am elated. I am also sad to see the shocking numbers for the BJP. Subhash, it is the triumph of honesty over dishonesty," Sinha tells Subhash K Jha.
"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 margin against the veteran BJP MP? "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," declaims Sinha in the style we have known for close to 50 years from his roles in Hindi cinema.
"I want to thank Miss Mamata Banerjee for her faith in me."
About the jibes over being an 'outsider' in Bengal, the irrepressible movie legend 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 the 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," Sinha who won the 2014 election from Patna Saheb as a BJP candidate, but soon parted ways with the party in the Modi-Shah era.
"The politics of divisiveness won't work. The janta is too clever not to see through it. The time for complacency is over for the BJP."
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com
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