LK Advani Said ‘Okay, Love You’ When I Met Him Before Quitting BJP: Shatrughan Sinha

Shatrughan Sinha said in an exclusive interview to a news channel that he was going in a "right direction".

Patna: Actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha on Wednesday said in an exclusive interview to NDTV that he was going in a “right direction and better direction” (referring to his decision to join the Congress), as he had sought blessings of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran LK Advani.

Sinha had on April 6 quit the BJP to join the Congress, thus, bring his 20 years old association with the saffron party to an end.

“When I came and joined the new direction, the better direction, I took Advaniji’s blessings. He almost had tears in his eyes, but he didn’t say ‘mat jao (don’t go)’. He said ‘Okay, love you’,” Shatrughan Sinha told NDTV’s Prannoy Roy.

Sinha also pointed out the difference between the functioning of the BJP now in comparison to the time when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was at the helm, terming the latter “Lok Sahi (democracy)’ and the former “Tana Shahi (autocracy)”.

Sinha was of the view that the BJP veterans were not treated fairly within the party, referring to examples of Advani, Vajpayee and others, the news channel noted.

Notably, Advani and Joshi, founder members of the BJP, were among some of the senior party leaders who were not given tickets to contest the Lok Sabha polls this year. Advani, 91, one of the longest-serving president of the ruling BJP was elected from the Gandhinagar parliamentary constituency seat six times since 1991. But this time, he was reportedly told by the party that Amit Shah would contest from Gandhinagar LS seat.

Sinha asserted that Narendra Modi would not come back to power and that his days are numbered. “Mamata Banerjee is our friend and the iron lady has rightly said that his expiry time is over. And now I only wish him well wherever he wants to go… he used to say that ‘I will pick up my ‘jholi’ (bag) and walk away. Now it is time for him to pick up his ‘jholi’ and go away,” Shatrughan Sinha told NDTV.