Shatrughan Sinha: “What Happened  At The National Awards Was Just So Unfortunate & Avoidable”

Shatrughan Sinha shares  the distress of the National film award winners who boycotted  the awards function  in the  absence  of the President Ram Nath Kovind .

Says  Shatrughan Sinha, “What happened is  very unfortunate and totally avoidable. I know the  President  personally. He used to be the Governor of Bihar and a fine human being. I am  sure he didn’t mean  to  hurt anyone’s sentiments. Unfortunately  because of some miscommunication lots of sentiments were  hurt. Aisa nahin hona chahiye. The  artistes  of  our country  are the pride of  the nation. You can’t invite them to receive the President’s award  and then have them receiving the award  in someone else’s hands.”

Not that  Shatruji has any misgivings about Smriti Irani giving out the National awards.  “She is a worthy  member of  the  BJP. However  these are the President’s awards. They  cannot be  given by anyone but the President. And  then some of the  supposedly more special award recipients were  handpicked for the  President to personally give the awards. With due respects to the  10-11 specially-chosen  recipients , every  recipient  of  the National award  is equally  special. It’s like you invite guests for dinner and serve two kinds  of food to two sections of the  invitees.”

 While  placing no blame on the President he wonders why the President couldn’t spare  ample time to  give the awards  to everyone. “Every President including the lady Pratibha Patil has patiently given the award to each and every winner. Why this  break from tradition? And what  pressing engagement could  possibly call the President away from the glorious task of honouring the best artistes  of  our country?”