Munnabhai MP to say it with roses
Living his on-screen image of a Gandhian, Sanjay Dutt in an exclusive chat with Hindustan Times says," I would offer roses to those political opponents who hurl abuses at me during the campaign."Manish Chandra Pandey & Pankaj Jaiswal examines...
“Lucknow will run out of roses!” Sanjay Dutt, it appears, plans to carry forward the screen image of Munnabhai to his new role as a politician, and the rose will be his weapon to counter opponents.
“I will offer roses to those political opponents who hurl abuses at me during the campaign,” said Dutt, who, like his father, wants to be remembered as a social worker, instead of a politician.
The Samajwadi Party candidate from Lucknow was at the Hindustan Times office on Wednesday. Giving him company was wife Manyata, party general secretary Amar Singh and MP Jaya Prada.
“I am young in politics and I will need the blessings and guidance of my seniors. That is why Amar Singhji is my dialogue (political director) writer,” said the actor who’s also planning a cycle yatra.
Manyata, who will accompany Dutt during his campaigns, said: “Lucknow is my sasuraal. I got my first mooh dikhai today from those people with whom my father-in-law, Sunil Duttji, had once stayed in Lucknow. So it’s a very emotional bond that we have with the city.”
On the ‘I-won’t-contest-if-Atal-does’ statement, Dutt said: “There was no strategy in it. It was straight from my heart.”
Singh said he had advised him not to be like Govinda or Dharmendra, “who were rarely seen in Parliament”. Asked if he was confident of Dutt’s “stability” in politics, he said: “One of the reasons we decided on him was the fact that he is very committed and stable. In fact I sometimes fear that he may give up his original profession and take to politics full time.”