Shatrughan Sinha tipped to join Trinamool

Kolkata: Not long after former Union minister and BJP leader Yashwant Sinha joined the Trinamool Congress, another national figure, Shatrughan Sinha, looks set to cross over to the Trinamool Congress from the Congress.

Senior Trinamool leaders claim that talks with Sinha are at the final stage and if everything goes as planned, he might join hands with Mamata Banerjee on July 21.

Though in a recent tweet Sinha popularly indicated a 'Ghar Wapsi' to the BJP but insiders in Trinamool Congress claim that after the West Bengal assembly elections where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee single-handedly destroyed the heavyweight saffron brigade, the 'Bihari Babu' is more inclined towards the Trinamool Congress.

Sinha, who had walked out of the BJP after launching a tirade against Prime Minister Narendra 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 aimed at homecoming efforts.

There was a turn of events after the assembly election in West Bengal when the former colleague of Yashwant Sinha, who is now the vice-president of Trinamool, showered 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".

When asked in an interview about his possibility of joining Trinamool Congress, the Bollywood hero of yesteryears stopped short of ruling out with a response that politics is an art of the possible.

As for the accommodation of Sinha in TMC, a Rajya Sabha seat appears to the most probable; at present there are two seats lying vacant, after former union minister Dinesh Trivedi quit and joined the BJP before the Bengal polls and Trinamool Congress MP Manas Bhuniaya contested the just-concluded state polls and became a minister in Mamta's third successive government.

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

(With IANS inputs)