Prosenjit Chatterjee on Wednesday clarified that he won’t be joining BJP. Rumours had been rife ever since the saffron party leader Anirban Ganguly met the Bengali actor at his residence on Tuesday.
Along with his family, Ganguly, an author and Member of the Policy Research Department of BJP, went to meet Chatterjee at his South Kolkata residence. He handed over a copy of his book on Amit Shah to the veteran actor.
At a time when several film personalities have joined political parties, speculations surfaced that Chatterjee would be the latest to choose a political camp in poll-bound West Bengal.
However, he dismissed all the rumours. “I’m not joining BJP. Anirban’s wife and daughter are my fans. That’s why they had come to meet me. They had come to meet an actor and a hero. He gifted me a book which I identified as his courtesy for me,” Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika quoted Chatterjee.
“If Prosenjit Chatterjee joins politics, he will do so openly without any fear. But Prosenjit will never come to politics, you can bet on it,” he added.
Earlier in the same day, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s Mohan Bhagwat met actor Mithun Chakraborty, raising rumours about the actor’s potential association with BJP.
Anticipations are doing the rounds that Chakraborty, one of the most sought-after Bengali icons, could join BJP ahead of the high voltage West Bengal Assembly Election, due in March-April.
RSS sarsanghchalak Bhagwat, 70, called on Chakraborty at his bungalow in suburban Madh area of Malad west, fuelling theories of the star’s comeback to active politics after a five-year hiatus.
However, Chakraborty scotched all rumours of his return to politics but added that Bhagwat, whom he recently met in Uttar Pradesh, had paid him a return visit. Earlier, the duo also met in Nagpur, where the RSS headquarters are located.
“Do not speculate, I and Bhagwat have a spiritual connect. We had met in Lucknow and I had requested him to visit me whenever he visited Mumbai,” Chakraborty said.
The meeting comes ahead of the Election Commission of India’s plans to announce the West Bengal Assembly elections.
Incidentally, Chakraborty had visited the RSS headquarters in Nagpur earlier, hinting at his growing association with the Sangh pariwar.
A Naxal activist during the 70s, the National Award-winning actor shared a close bond with the CPIM during the 34-year-long Left Front rule of West Bengal.
However, he changed colours after the power shifted to Mamata Banerjee’s TMC.
A former All India Trinamool Congress Party Rajya Sabha MP, who quit in 2016 citing health-related problems, Chakraborty still remains popular among the Bengali masses.