BJP’s ‘Shatru’ not to vote with ‘enemy’ camp

Rebel BJP MP and a known Narendra Modi-baiter Shatrughan Sinha stunned everyone on Thursday when he said he would vote against the no-trust motion on Friday.

The Opposition, as well as the BJP-led NDA, have been keeping a hawkish eye on five of rebel BJP MPs including Shatru and Kirti Azad, the cricketer-turned-Lok Sabha member from Darbhanga, during the crucial floor test.

Kirti, who has been suspended from the party for his diatribe against Union Minister Arun Jaitley, has not made his preference clear for the Friday voting.

Shatru, the four-term MP, who runs the risk of losing his membership for defying the party whip on Friday, said, “At present, I am a BJP MP. Neither I have left the party, nor the party has left me. So there is no question of voting or supporting the no-confidence motion.”

Shatru’s unpredictable fondness for his parent party has raised many eyebrows as he was last seen breaking bread with former Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and Rajya Sabha MP Misa Bharti at the RJD’s Iftaar party last month. He was also singing paeans to Congress president Rahul Gandhi and at the same time slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his tweets about the “one-man show and the two-man army” – the latter in reference to Modi’s commander-in-chief Amit Shah.

Incidentally, when BJP president Amit Shah visited Patna on July 12, thousands of posters, banners and welcome arches were put up by the party, but the BJP’s Lok Sabha MP from Patna Sahib, Shatrughan, already declared a ‘persona non grata’, was nowhere to be seen. Nor Amit Shah ever invited Shatru in any of the four meetings he held in the state Capital throughout the day on last Thursday.