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'Father Congress, mother Sanghi': Smriti Irani on family and why she joined BJP
Former minister cites her RSS-supporting maternal grandfather as major household influence on her political choices
Former union minister Smriti Irani recalled her early days in the BJP and spoke about how her father would drop her off at the gates of the Prime Minister's residence, and not want to come in, during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's time because of being a Congress supporter.
Her mother, she said, was a supporter of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent body of the BJP.
“Father Congress, mother Sanghi!” she quipped.
She counted her RSS-supporting maternal grandfather as the major household influence on her political choices.
“I remember how my nana would walk daily for the RSS shakha in Sector 6, RK Puram,” she said in an interview with India Today TV in which she went to see her old home in Delhi.
Also read | ‘At just 49…’: Smriti Irani on possible political retirement
“The environment at home was always that if you want to do social service, stay with the Sangh, ‘what’s the need to go into politics?'” she said, “My view was that I wanted to be a part of policy-making, and that's why I joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).”
About how her father met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2023, she said, “My father was — still is — a Congress supporter… During Vajpayee-ji's time, when I was a BJP worker, he never sought to enter the PM residence; never wished to meet the PM. But this was the first time he showed such a desire; he wanted to meet PM Modi and thank him for giving his daughter an opportunity to serve the country.”
Irani, who lost the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Amethi, is busy at present with her big TV acting comeback, with the series ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’. It was this series at the turn of the millennium that made her a household name as ‘Tulsi’, easing her entry into politics.
In the interview, she denied that she was retiring from politics. She also spoke about why she has blunted her attacks on Rahul Gandhi, whom she had famously defeated in 2019: “That's not my responsibility.”
