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The Lone Voice of Dissent… Raj Babbar!
Raj Babbar is one actor-politician who is the most under-rated and also the most misunderstood. It has something to do with the negative roles he played. He started as a rapist who goes scot-free in Insaaf Ka Tarazu (B R Chopra’s remake of Lipstick) and has played dark characters with conviction. In fact, it is the positive characters that have taken the beating.
But the private Raj Babbar is different. He is an idealist. He became a socialist student leader under the tutelage of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia and has always had the guts to be the lone voice of dissent.
 He is not known for climbing the bandwagon and if in 1987 he joined VP Singh, Singh was alone. It was not a politically smart move but for Babbar it was ideology.
I take him seriously when Raj Babbar says to a reporter that, ‘‘It is time our ‘Dharti Putra’ Mulayam Singh Yadav decides whether he wants to impose ‘middleman culture’ on society or revive serious issues of development and uplift of the poor and downtrodden. Mulayam Singh will have to answer how a small broker/fixer who lived on small brokerage, was given a chance to make so much money...it is this corporate middleman culture which now dominates the party.’’
Exposing Amar Singh he has further added, “Amar Singh has often said he is on sale and his price is nothing less than Rs 5 crore. Do you expect me to accept somebody who says this as the leadership of the party?’’
Raj Babbar says that has raised the issue several times during the past two years with Mulayam Singh but he has not received any answers. He is now going to people saying that the people of this country must decide whether they want brokers who look after the interests of the rich, or leaders who look after the downtrodden.
Raising voice against Amar Singh requires courage even for Raj Babbar. A fight with Amar Singh is a fight with the powerful Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Ambani and Babbar’s very own Subrato Roy…perhaps even Mulayam Singh. Will they allow Raj Babbar to stay in Samjwadi Party? Or will they hound him out?
Congress is waiting for him with open arms and yes, for the record, Babbar hero(ine) worshipped Mrs Indira Gandhi!
Raj Babbar will certainly be an asset to Congress.
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