Big B faces Congress ire for overtures to BJP

Is Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan the ‘advance guard’ for expelled Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh’s entry into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stable?

The Congress thinks so, and beginning this week, the party plans to politically attack the Big B — as Bachchan is popularly referred to — for his overtures to the BJP-led governments in various states.

Bachchan has agreed to be the brand ambassador of Gujarat, which is led by the Narendra Modi-led BJP government. His recent film Paa, in which he played the role of a 12-year-old progeria patient, has been declared tax-free in another BJP-ruled state — Karnataka.

The Congress first reacted by saying that Bachchan should not misuse his celebrity status. “Amitabh Bachchan should not misuse his celebrity status and become the brand ambassador for the vested interests,” Rajeev Shukla, All India Congress Committee secretary and co-ordinator for Gujarat, said on Wednesday. But within 24 hours, the Congress took a tougher stand with B K Hariprasad, general secretary in charge of Gujarat, saying, “He can go anywhere for money.”

“Earlier, he was the brand ambassador of Uttar Pradesh when his friends in the Samajwadi Party ran the government there. Now, when the rival Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has come in power and there is no place for him in UP, he has switched over to Gujarat for money,” Hariprasad added.

At a party rally in Surat on Sunday, the Congress will start attacking Bachchan over his hobnobbing with the saffron party.

Bachchan, once a close friend of former prime minister and Congress leader Rajiv Gandhi, was a Congress MP from Allahabad in the Lok Sabha.

Eventually, Amitabh Bachchan also forged close ties with the Samajwadi Party through Amar Singh. His wife Jaya Bachchan became a member of the Rajya Sabha on an SP nomination.