Film actor's poll interest causes uneasiness in BJP

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) found itself in a spot again, after popular film actor Shatrughan Sinha unilaterally announced his candidature for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Sinha is the second senior leader of the party to announce his candidature, after former vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.

However, unlike Shekhawat who has not announced the seat he intends to contest, Sinha has declared his candidature for Bihar's Patna Sahib seat. On the other hand, while Shekhawat is keeping the option open of entering into the fray as an independent, Sinha has indicated that he would contest the Patna Sahib seat as official candidate of the rival Rashtriya Janata Dal for the same seat, if BJP denies him the nomination.

BJP sources said that Sinha's announcement has triggered a battle within the party since spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad is not willing to give up his claim on the Patna Sahib seat, already assured to him by the party's central election committee.

Sinha, who joined politics in 1977 at the peak of his acting career, is already at logger-heads with the BJP leadership after he was denied a third term in the Rajya Sabha for Bihar last year on grounds that BJP does not encourage third consecutive term in the Upper House, forcing him to eye the Patna Sahib seat.

Both Sinha and Prasad belong to the same Kayastha caste. While Sinha has a following among the masses, Prasad is popular in the party.

What is worrying the BJP most is that in the event that Sinha switches over to the Rashtriya Janata Dal, BJP would lose a star campaigner since the actor attracts huge crowds wherever he goes.

Besides being a popular film star, he is an eloquent public speaker.

BJP is already facing paucity of star campaigners due to ill health of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.