india

Updated: Sep 07, 2020 15:56 IST

Shatrughan Sinha, the actor-turned-politician who was the BJP’s in-house critic for years before joining the Congress last year, on Monday tweeted a surprise ‘thank you’ note to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the evacuation of Indians from China in wake of the coronavirus.

“With an attitude of gratitude, I salute you & your people for having done the needful in an emergency situation so soon, as I always say soon, sooner the better,” Sinha said in a string of tweets on Monday.

The Indian government has evacuated over 600 Indians, most of them students, from Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed over 360 people. In the second Air India flight that landed on Sunday from China, there were seven Maldivians as well who were evacuated at the request of their government and have been kept at quarantine facilities in national capital Delhi.

Shatrughan Sinha’s praise for the BJP-led national coalition for evacuating Indian nationals was, however, a surprise because he had been one of the sharpest critics of the government for the past few years. The former Patna Sahib lawmaker finally exited the BJP last year before the national elections when the BJP decided to field law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from the seat.

Sinha was defeated by Ravi Shankar Prasad who secured 62 per cent of the votes cast as against Sinha’s 33 per cent.

Sinha, also called Shotgun for his piercing comments, prefaced his praise to PM Modi and Amit Shah with what he said was his reputation.

“Since I am famous, or infamous, for calling a spade a spade, I acknowledge, appreciate & applaud you, your #PMO, also Hon’ble HM #AmitShah as well as #AirIndia & the crew who have risen to the occasion for evacuating our own children & students from #Wuhan,China, during the #CoronavirusOutbreak. Politics apart, elections far apart this humanitarian gesture was done in the nation(al) interest,” he tweeted.

Sinha’s laudatory tweet came at a time he is in Delhi to campaign for the Congress candidates. He started last evening, addressing a public meeting in south Delhi’s Sangam Vihar for Poonam Azad.

Poonam Azad, who had joined the Congress in 2017, is wife of cricketer-turned-politician Kirti Azad who had also been a harsh critic of BJP leaders before his exit from the party last year.