Shatrughan Sinha likely to quit Congress and join Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress: Sources

A section of the Trinamool Congress leaders said in Kolkata that talks are in an advanced stage in this regard. The TMC leaders said the actor-politician always had a good relation with Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

File Photo

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Shatrughan Sinha is likely to crossover to Mamata Banerjee's side and join her party Trinamool Congress in coming days, sources said.

According to sources, Sinha has been more inclined towards the Trinamool Congress, ever since it humbled the saffron party in the recently held general assembly election in West Bengal and its supremo Mamata Banerjee emerged as a potent rival of Prime Minister Modi in 2024 general election. "There is a chance of Shatrughan Sinha switching over to the Trinamool on its July 21 Martyrs' day celebration function," said sources. 

Recently, when Sinha was questioned by PTI about his chance of joining the Trinamool Congress, he had refused to make a direct comment, saying, "Politics is an art of possibility." Sources close to him, however, did not deny the chance.

A section of the TMC leaders also said in Kolkata that talks are in an advanced stage in this regard. The TMC leaders said the actor-politician always had a good relation with Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Sinha, popularly known as 'Bihari Babu', made lavish praise on Mamata Banerjee, calling her 'real Royal Bengal tiger' and a 'tried and tested leader who trounced propaganda and 'dhanshakti' (money power) in the just-concluded Bengal polls'.

Sinha's former colleague in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministry, Yashwant Sinha, is now national vice-president of the TMC. Sinha, the two-term BJP MP from Patna Sahib, had joined the Congress and entered into the fray from the same constituency in the 2019 polls but lost to former union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Though a big name in politics, Sinha, has not been given any big responsibility by the Congress.

Mamata Banerjee who has emerged as a strong rival to Modi in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls has already made it clear that her party will have a larger role outside West Bengal and in that scheme of things, people like Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha could be important for the party.

Indications are that Shatrughan Sinha might be sent to the Upper House of Parliament from one of the two seats of the TMC.

Sinha, who had walked out of the BJP after launching a tirade against Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, saying the saffron party has become 'one man party and two men army', had recently posted a tweet saying apart from three variants of COVID, there is a fourth variant of people being "dukhi" (unhappy) with Modi without any reason. This was seen in the political circles as his efforts to reach out to his parent party to make a homecoming.

A popular Bollywood hero of yesteryears, Shatrughan Sinha had joined the BJP in the early '80s when it was a party of two MPs and served as its star campaigner for a long time during the Atal-Advani era. He, however, fell out with the present saffron party leadership of Modi-Shah and finally left it and joined the Congress before the last general election.