JOIN USKhushbu Sundar exits Congress, joins BJP, and praises PM Narendra Modi
Popular South Indian actress Khushbu Sundar on Monday ended her six-year-long association with the Congress and immediately joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whose leaders she had criticised vehemently in her role as AICC spokesperson.
Though she had strongly taken on Narendra Modi in the past, the 50-year-old actor lavished praise on the Prime Minister immediately after receiving the BJP membership card, saying only he can take the country in the right direction and to its glory.
Khushbu’s induction into the party will come as a boost for the Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP, which is on a massive recruitment drive, to enhance its presence in the state, whose politics has been hegemonized by Dravidian majors – DMK and AIADMK – for the past five decades. Party leaders feel Khushbu’s popularity will help BJP expand its base in Tamil Nadu.
The BJP in Tamil Nadu hardly has any base but is making concerted efforts to emerge as an ideological and political alternative to the Dravidian parties. Recently, the BJP welcomed former Karnataka-cadre IPS officer K Annamalai into its fold and made him the state unit’s vice-president.
Khushbu joined the BJP at its headquarters in New Delhi in the presence of General Secretary C T Ravi and BJP’s TN unit chief L Murugan. DH had its October 12 edition reported that Khushbu will join the BJP. Born as Nakhat Khan into a Muslim family in Mumbai, Khushbu, who has acted in nearly 200 films, joined the Congress in 2014 after quitting the DMK.
“Over a period of time I have come to an understanding that if the nation has to move forward, we need somebody like our Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji to take the country in the right direction and (to) its glory,” she said, after joining the BJP.
To a question on her past criticism of Modi and today’s praise, Khushbu said it was her job as Congress spokesperson to criticise the ruling party, BJP.
“I have just changed my party. My ideology remains the same. I am an activist more than a political leader… What is important for me is who has helped the country and (I feel) there is no corruption in BJP,” she said.
Khushbu also said she will work towards the party’s “victory” in the Tamil Nadu assembly elections due in the first half of 2021. Her joining the BJP came a week after Khushbu scotched speculation about her jumping the ship.
On Monday morning, she sent in her resignation letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi after which the actor was removed as party spokesperson. In the letter, Khushbu complained that she was being “pushed and suppressed” by “few elements” who have no connectivity with the ground reality or public recognition.
The party also said Khushbu’s exit was no “setback” with the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) getting personal saying, it was the actor’s husband Sundar C who “forced the decision” on her.