Shatrughan Sinha Friday hinted he would not be working under Narendra Modi anymore, tweeting an Urdu verse that implied the Prime Minister may not have dearth of admirers but the dissident BJP leader would not be one of them.
“Mohabbat karne wale kam na honge, teri mehfil mein lekin ham na honge (you may perhaps have no dearth of admirers, but I would not be among them),” the Patna Sahib MP tweeted.
Sinha has on multiple occasions expressed his unhappiness with the Prime Minister and the BJP leadership and his Friday tweet made it clear he might soon quit the party he has been associated with nearly two decades now.
Though he did not mention Prime Minister Modi in his tweets, the wordings made it clear who he was referring too. In his tweets, Sinha often refers to the Prime Minister as “sir”.
“Sir, the Nation respects you, but the only thing the leadership lacks is credibility & trust factor. Leadership jo kar rahi hai aur kah rahi hai kya log uspe vishwas kar rahe hain, shayad nahin (Do the people trust what the leadership is saying and doing? Perhaps not),” the actor-turned politician wrote.
He said, “Any way it all seems to be too little and too late. Promises made in the past are still to be fulfilled. Hope, wish and pray that- Mohabbat karne wale kam na honge (shayad), teri mehfil mein lekin ham na honge.”
Associated with the BJP since the 1990s, Sinha fell out with the party’s leadership in the recent past, complaining it has become a “one-man show and two-man army”– a reference apparently to the Prime Minister and his trusted aide and party president Amit Shah.
Sinha has repeatedly asserted he would seek a re-election from the Patna Sahib seat though it may be as a candidate of a different party
“Location will be the same, situation may be different,” the 72-year-old leader has said in the past.
Sinha had served as a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and is serving his second consecutive term as MP from Patna Sahib.
He has also indicated that an announcement on which of the opposition parties he will be joining was likely next week.
Speculations are rife that the opposition “Mahagathbandhan” in the state, led by the RJD and the Congress, will field him from the Patna Sahib seat.