Actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha said in Patna on Wednesday that he would carry out any responsibility handed to him with sincerity, as talk spread in the Congress that he could be named the next head of the party’s Delhi unit.

Sinha’s response

“Personally I have no demand, command or expectations,” Sinha told the news agency PTI, adding that he would do whatever job came his way with full commitment.

His name was being discussed within the Congress as a possible successor to veteran leader Sheila Dikshit, who had died recently.

Why his name came up

Delhi was due to hold assembly elections early the following year. Sinha was seen as a strong answer to Manoj Tiwari, the BJP’s Delhi unit chief, who is a popular Bhojpuri actor-singer and, like Sinha, from Bihar. Tiwari had beaten Dikshit in North East Delhi in the Lok Sabha election by a margin of more than 3 lakh votes.

Delhi also has a large Purvanchali population of people from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, which party members believed could work in Sinha’s favour.

Sinha represented Patna Saheb in the Lok Sabha for two terms in a row. He left the BJP for the Congress just before the 2019 general election after being denied a ticket, and lost the seat to Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad of the BJP.

What happened next

In the 2020 Delhi assembly election, the Aam Aadmi Party won 62 seats and the BJP 8, and Arvind Kejriwal remained Chief Minister.

See also: Indian National Congress and election news.

Originally published on 8 August 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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