Bengal's legendary actor Soumitra Chatterjee made his mark decades ago as a hero in Satyajit Ray's films.
One and a half years on, demonetisation returned to haunt the BJP with Bengal's legendary actor Soumitra Chatterjee bluntly telling the party that demonetisation was definitely a government policy that baffled and upset him.
"One thing I was very unhappy about is demonetisation. We had to face a lot of practical difficulties because of it. Practical problems. I am not an economist, I don't understand all aspects. But all of a sudden so much money becoming useless was really a big problem." Mr Chatterjee told BJP leader Rahul Sinha.
Mr Sinha, a national secretary in the party, met with the veteran actor as part of the "Sampark for Samarthan" campaign, an outreach programme launched by Mr Amit Shah to reach out to intellectuals across the country and seek their views and suggestions on the government as part of BJP's mass connect plan ahead of 2019 General Election.
The BJP leader has so far met retired Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, former commissioner of police Dinesh Vajpaye, retired justice Shyamal Sen among others as part of the programme. While all of them avoided making any controversial statements, Mr Chatterjee, by accident or design, delivered a demonetisation blow.
But when asked for suggestions on how to improve government performance, Mr Chatterjee hastily excused himself and said he is far removed from the politics these days.
The BJP however was so pleased with having met with the reclusive actor who made his mark decades ago as a hero in Satyajit Ray's films that it shared clips of video of the meeting on its WhatsApp group for media.
As rivals cheered what they called Mr Chatterjee's snub to the BJP, BJP was quick to react.
"Mr Chatterjee was a little unhappy with the demonetisation, but was really happy with the other works of our government" Mr Rahul Sinha told reporters.
Earlier, Mr Chatterjee was viewed as Left leaning, but for several years now, he has stayed away from politics. He had however condemned the controversy over Padmaavat.
The octogenarian Bengali screen legend was recently honored with the Legion of Honour, the highest civilian honor in France for his contribution to films.