Team News Riveting
Southern movie star Khushboo Sundar, who had been in the thick of controversy from allegedly working against Hindutva, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
She was Congress spokesperson until Monday morning. But by afternoon, she was a BJP leader.
The actor-turned-politician resigned from the Congress after six years. In a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, she alleged that individuals like her were being “suppressed” by “few elements seated at higher levels within the party.”
She was being speculated to join the saffron brigade for quite some time, which she had denied. This morning, getting a sense of the development, Congress dropped her as party spokesperson.
Later she met BJP President J P Nadda. Soon after joining the BJP, Khushboo said, she had “come to an understanding” that if the nation had to “move forward” it needed the leadership of PM Modi.
“I am whole-heartedly in the service of the Bharatiya Janata Party and I promise to do my best in whatever responsibilities given to me. I will make sure that my state sees a BJP government,” she said.
Along with Sundar, Madan Ravichandran and Saravanan Kumaran from Tamil Nadu also joined the BJP at the party headquarters here.
Ahead of the Tamil Nadu Assembly polls scheduled next year, Khushboo’s move is being seen as BJP attempting to ramp up its organisation in the southern state where it has a very weak presence.
But the move of the BJP would not go well with the Hindutva brigade in Tamil Nadu. For, the actress who had featured in 200 movies, had been under the attack of saffron camp for her controversy.
Khushboo’s created a controversy in December 2012 when she wore a saree that had images of Hindu gods of Ram, Krishna and Hanuman. The Hindu Makkal Katchi demanded her for an apology and threatened to start agitations.
She responded by saying that “I am not going to answer every Tom, Dick and Harry. Why should I? There is no need at all. Why are they worried about what a woman sports. Don’t they have any other worthwhile work?”.
The Hindu Munnani and the Hindu Makkal Katchi filed several cases against Khushboo accusing the actress that she had disrespected Hindu gods by sitting cross-legged with her slippers in front of the idols of Goddesses Lakshmi, Sarswathy and Parvathy during ‘pooja’ for the muhurat at Chennai on November 22, 2007.
