I'm not joining BJP: Madhabi Mukherjee

Speculations have been rife since a while that veteran actress Madhabi Mukherjee is all set to join BJP. When we reached out to the actress, she refuted the claims and said she has no plans of joining the party in the near future. Clearing the air, she said that she was approached to join an organisation that aims at the betterment of technicians of the Bengali film industry, as a consultant. However, she didn’t know it was a BJP-backed organisation.

“Recently, a few members of the Bongio Chalachitro Porishad (BCP) approached me to join them as a consultant. They had mentioned that the organisation is for poor technicians, who do not get work in the Bengali film, television and jatra industry. I thought it was a great initiative and agreed to come on board. But the next day, I learnt from various newspapers that BCP is a BJP-backed organisation. It was then that I refused to join it,” she said, adding that had she known about it earlier, she wouldn’t have joined in the first place.

Meanwhile, BCP held a press meet today and said that it is an organisation that has no links with any political party. “Madhabi debi is a legendary actress and she is absolutely right in saying that she has not joined BJP. Our organisation is not BJP-backed. People from film, television and jatra industry have joined us after years of exploitation by a particular political party,” said

Milan

Bhowmik, a member of BCP.

Even though BJP activist Shankudeb Panda is heading the organisation, actress

Subhadra

Mukherjee clarified that there are a number of people in the organisation who are from CPM and the Congerss.

“People can have their own political agendas and we have nothing to do with that. If someone from TMC comes to us and asks for help, we will gladly offer help,” she said, adding that more than 10 film actors and 126 jatra artistes have already joined BCP.