Sanjay Raut slams actor Sonu Sood, calls him BJP frontman

Mumbai: Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday stirred a controversy by criticising actor Sonu Sood in his weekly column in Sena’s mouthpiece ‘Saamana’. The actor, who is in media glare for helping thousands of migrants reach their homes during the lockdown, especially from Maharashtra, came for scathing criticism from Raut. The Sena MP claimed that the BJP was behind publicising Sood’s work on a wider scale so that to put the state government in a bad light. He said that the actor was adopted by the BJP.

He sarcastically called him ‘Mahatma’ Sood, who was even invited by the Maharashtra Governor for tea. The Sena’s Rajya Sabha MP questioned how Sood could have done all this without the backing of a political party and termed this as part of an attempt to discredit the state government.

“Sood sent a plane to Ernakulam in Kerala to rescue 177 people who wanted to go back to Odisha. The Odisha CM thanked Sood for this. How he could have done this without political and administrative support?”


Raut said that Sood would now be invited to meet PM Modi and also be their star campaigner. Later on while speaking to media, Raut claimed that Sood’s work was all about TV channels and PR machinery working overtime. “During lockdown we didn’t get an aircraft, how did Sood get an aircraft to transport the migrants? He has done good work, but there is a political director behind him. This is my view and many people have told me. This was an attempt to show the state government in poor light.”