Popularly known as Bihari Babu, Shatrughan Sinha, the sitting MP from Patna Sahib who has thrown his hat on Congress ticket after being denied opportunity by the BJP to contest again and facing challenge from senior BJP leader and union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in a straight fight in parliamentary elections in this seat, would have to try hard to succeed to silence (khamosh) his critics otherwise his own voice would fall silent in Lok Sabha .
Sinha has been star campaigner and crowd puller for BJP for decades since its beginning when the party had a strength of only two MPs in Lok Sabha in 1984. When stalwarts like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani were calling the shot with their vigorous pragmatic vision, which helped in spreading the mass base of the party, Sinha had also played a vital role in his own style of delivering speeches. After spending two terms as MP in Rajya Sabha, Sinha had contested from Patna Sahib Lok Sabha seat on BJP ticket and registered victory with an impressive margin in 2009 Lok Sabha elections and later he was also re-elected in 2014 Lok Sabha elections with a record margin.
Bihari Babu, who remained a star campaigner of BJP for a long period, started feeling sidelined as he was not invited to play his role in several state assembly elections that were held after 2014 Lok Sabha elections, which was described as “Modi wave” by political pundits. Narendra Modi, after becoming Prime Minister in 2014, remained not only the star campaigner of BJP but also the biggest crowd puller. New “think tank” under the Modi regime in BJP did not see star value in “Bihari Babu” any more and he was also not given cabinet berth in the new government formed after 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Sinha, visibly upset and annoyed over the attitude towards him by the top leadership of the party, started targeting Prime Minister Modi on policies being pursued by his government. Demonetisation and Goods and Service Tax (GST) proved to be good reasons for Sinha to severely criticise his own party government, which was already under fire from the opposition on these two grounds. Crushing defeat of BJP in 2015 Bihar Assembly elections was also cheered by Sinha who had said that poor strategy and reluctance of the party to utilise his services led to the debacle in state assembly battle. (UNI)
