With his recent utterances on Narendra Modi and L K Advani leaving many leaders in Bharatiya Janata Party red faced, actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha on Thursday said he did not violate party discipline and stuck to his remarks.
"It is wrong to see my statement as anti-Narendra Modi or pro-Modi, it is pro-BJP," said Sinha, a Lok Sabha member from Patna Saheb.
"I merely said that if BJP Parliamentary Board chooses Narendra Modi, whose name is energising party workers, as the prime ministerial candidate, he should have the blessings and guidance of veteran party leaders like L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha, among others," Sinha said.
When he told that the party might initiate action against him for his "frank" opinion, Sinha said, "I stand by what I said and I have not violated any party discipline."
"BJP is in a very good position to win the 2014 parliamentary elections and so I have put forward some suggestions to make the party strong," he said.
"I came to the BJP at the peak of my Bollywood career and as a disciplined soldier of the party, I can never think of harming BJP. My utterances are for the good of the party," he said.
Sinha, who has been a star campaigner of the BJP since a long time, claimed he was the first person to state that Narendra Modi had the potential to become a good national leader.
On his recent meeting with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Sinha said, "It was not a secret meeting but a sacred one."
"I had gone to enquire about his health as I enjoy a personal and affectionate relationship with him," Sinha said, adding, "We also shared our anxiety over the death of 23 children in the midday meal tragedy at Chhapra".
When told that people are seeing his two-hour meeting with Nitish Kumar as significant as a Nitish-Shatrughan Sinha combination could be a "deadly and formidable one for others", Sinha said, "Yesterday's call on Nitish was a social one, not a political one."
