Kolkata: Actor-turned-politician Mithun Chakraborty met Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat in Nagpur and is said to have expressed his willingness to work for “nation-building and the RSS”, ThePrint has learnt.
On Thursday, the former Trinamool Congress MP dropped in at the RSS headquarters for a visit and had an hour-long meeting with Bhagwat, leading to speculation about a potential political jump.
This was the first such meeting between the actor and the RSS chief.
Speaking to ThePrint, RSS joint general secretary Manmohan Vaidya said, “We are not a political organisation. People keep coming to our headquarters and meet Bhagwat ji. He (Chakraborty) sought an appointment two months back. He has started learning about Sangh’s work.”
He added, “To us, this is just a beginning and there was no talk on his association with the Sangh. Before being associated with the (Sangh) Parivar, he needs to understand the Sangh and its work.”
However, a senior Sangh functionary said Chakraborty was open to any responsibility.
“This is in a very premature stage. For getting responsibility in Sangh, one needs to understand how Sangh functions,” said the functionary who didn’t wish to be named.
ThePrint tried to reach Chakraborty but he was unavailable for comment.
Speaking to the The Print, BJP’s national general secretary and the party’s Bengal in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya said, “We are yet to get any proposal from him. But if he wants to join party, he is welcome… He is highly respected in Bengal and people love him.”
‘Not a politician’
BJP’s West Bengal unit chief Dilip Ghosh said he hadn’t heard of Mithun Chakraborty’s meeting with Mohan Bhagwat. However, he did speak about Chakraborty’s political career.
“He is not a politician and he was never into active politics. He joined Trinamool Congress in 2014 and was nominated as a Rajya Sabha member. In two years, he resigned,” said Ghosh.
He added, “We have not received any proposal from the senior leaders for using him for any political activity in the state as of now. He might join Sangh and work for the country. Apart from this, we are not aware of any political role that he might have later.”
‘Amicable separation’
Mithun Chakraborty’s move has left the Trinamool Congress leaders in a slightly awkward position, but they didn’t say much about the actor’s meeting with the RSS chief.
“It has been three years since he quit Trinamool Congress. It was an amicable separation. He has been in touch with our leader (chief minister Mamata Banerjee). However, the party has no direct connection with him,” said a TMC leader who didn’t wish to be named.
The actor was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in April 2014. But he resigned in December 2016, two years ahead of his term’s expiry, citing health issues. He had not been attending Parliament for long prior to that.
Before that, Chakraborty had slowly distanced himself from the party programmes too. His move came after he received summons from the Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam in 2015.
Chakraborty’s name was mentioned by Saradha Group chairman and managing director Sudipta Sen in his letter to CBI in April 2013. In the letter, Sen had mentioned that TMC MPs Srinjay Bose and Kunal Ghosh had brought in Chakraborty as the brand ambassador of a channel owned by him.
The actor was questioned by the investigators several times for his involvement in the scam. In June 2015, he returned Rs 1.19 crore, which he taken the money from Sen for an event, to the ED office in Kolkata.
Another one bites the dust.