Samajwadi Party names Sanjay Dutt to top post

New Delhi: Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt may be unable to contest elections but on Thursday got a firm foothold in the world of politics when he became general secretary of the Samajwadi Party.

"I am very happy that party leader Mulayam Singhji and other seniors chose me to become the party's national general secretary," Dutt told reporters at a press conference.

"Mein dil se kam karoonga aur sach ke liye kam karoonga (I will work with my heart and for the truth)."

Dutt had been given a ticket by the Samajwadi Party to contest the Lok Sabha election from Lucknow but could not do so after the Supreme Court Tuesday refused to suspend his conviction for owning illegal arms in the run-up to the 1993 serial bombings in Mumbai.

He lashed out at the Congress for ill-treating his father, the late actor and central minister Sunil Dutt.

"My father was very unhappy when the Congress took in Sanjay Nirupam (the Shiv Sena leader in Mumbai who joined the Congress). They have now given Nirupam a ticket - the same guy who had made such derogatory remarks about Sunil Dutt sahib and the Congress when he was with the Shiv Sena. My father would have been hurt and saddened," Dutt said.

He said when he had stood by his sister Priya Dutt, a Congress parliamentarian, it was "as a brother, not a politician". "At the time I was rooting for her as her brother not as a politician... times have changed."

Meanwhile, Senior Maharashtra Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam yesterday hit back at Bollywood actor and newly-appointed Samajwadi Party general secretary Sanjay Dutt for criticising him and holding him 'responsible' for his father Sunil Dutt's death.

Responding to the allegations made by Dutt at his first press conference after taking over as general secretary of Samajwadi Party, Nirupam, the Congress candidate from Mumbai North, said that the late Sunil Dutt was deeply aggrieved by his only son's wayward behaviour and his addiction to drugs.