Actor and former Congress spokesperson Kushboo Sundar on Monday joined the BJP , having sent in her resignation letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi. She said she had been contemplating the action since March last.
Ms. Sundar, who lives in Chennai, joined the BJP in New Delhi in the presence of party’s State unit chief L. Murugan and national general secretary C.T. Ravi, along with two others from Tamil Nadu- journalist Madan Ravichandran and former Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer Sarvana Kumar.
“I promise to carry out any assignment given to me by the party and express faith in the leadership of our honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji ,” she said at a press conference.
The reasons
Later, speaking to The Hindu , Ms. Sundar was more candid. She said she had spoken of the reasons for quitting the Congress in her letter to Ms. Gandhi. In it, she referred to a “few elements, seated at a higher level within the party, people who have no connectivity with the ground reality or public recognition” who were “dictating terms”. She added, “People like me, who wanted to work for the party sincerely are being pushed and suppressed.”
Ms. Sundar said, “This letter was ready way back in March, and since I had joined the Congress in the presence of Ms. Gandhi, I wanted to hand over the resignation letter in person. But the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown prevented it”.
Mentions Modi
At the time of writing the letter, she said, she was not sure that she would be joining the BJP. “As a person occupying the position of spokesperson, it was my duty to attack the policies of the government even though all Bills have certain flaws. But gradually I felt that the clarity that the BJP has, in terms of its ideology and leadership was important, instead of being in a party where the question of leadership is also in a flux. The trust that people have repeatedly shown in Prime Minister Modi is something that needs to be understood”.
On the question of how she would deal with the perception that the BJP, as a party, was not exactly considered friendly towards minorities, she replied with a one-liner, “If the BJP is anti-minority, then is Congress anti-Hindu?”
She said that she was awaiting an assignment from the State unit and did not elaborate on how she saw the future of the BJP panning out in Tamil Nadu, where the party has a miniscule presence.
