Actor Suresh Oberoi has opened up about his experience with politics, recalling how he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party after a friend from his Hyderabad college suggested it, and why he eventually felt he did not belong in the political world.

In a conversation with Nidhi Vasandani on her podcast, the veteran actor said his entry into the BJP was not the result of a long-held political ambition.

“I had a friend from my college in Hyderabad. One day, he came to my house and told me to join the BJP. So I went with him,” Suresh recalled.

Suresh Oberoi joined the BJP in 2004, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, and went on to campaign for the party and serve in its cultural cell.

He said his early association with the party brought him into contact with its senior leaders, including L.K. Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

“Advani ji and Atal ji put a garland around me, but after that, when I met my guru, someone who loved me so much, he scolded me very strongly. He told me, ‘Be careful, don’t even keep contact with these people.’ He had never scolded anyone, but he really reprimanded me,” Suresh said.

‘I didn’t get good energy from politics’

Despite the warning, Suresh Oberoi said he continued to remain in touch with political leaders. But he eventually realised that he was uncomfortable with the political environment.

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“I continued to stay in touch, but later I wasn’t happy about it from within. I didn’t get good energy from it. Modi ji and Amit Shah were fine, but many of the other people there felt strange to me. Something felt fake. In films, you work on a film and then you move on. Here, it doesn’t work that way. You have to take things along with you, move together and become a part of it. I couldn’t become that part,” he said.

Suresh said that his understanding of politics was rooted in an idealistic notion of public service, but that what he encountered left him disappointed.

“I used to think politics meant doing something for your country,” he said, adding, “Later I realised that most people were making money — lying and making money.”

Suresh Oberoi clarified that he was not referring to everyone in politics and singled out a handful of leaders.

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“Leaving two or four people aside, like Modiji, one or two of the top people around him, or Yogiji — I am not talking about them — but apart from them, most of the people were making money. So I didn’t like the people,” he said.

‘I have always been a fan of Mohan Bhagwat’

While Suresh Oberoi said he struggled with electoral politics, he spoke warmly about his admiration for RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.

“I have always been a fan of Mohan Bhagwat ji,” he said.

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Suresh then recalled a personal interaction with Bhagwat, saying he once invited him to his home and was given a date for the following year. The RSS leader eventually visited for breakfast, where the actor’s wife prepared halwa for him.

“He was very happy. He doesn’t eat sweets, so my wife said, ‘I’ll make halwa.’ We fed him halwa and he always remembered that,” Suresh recalled.

The actor said he had spoken to Mohan Bhagwat on the phone just four or five days before the podcast conversation.

“I spoke to him on the phone four or five days ago,” he said, adding that he had also taken the reels of his son Vivek Oberoi’s 2019 film PM Narendra Modi to Nagpur to show Bhagwat.

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Suresh Oberoi’s BJP stint

Suresh Oberoi’s political association with the BJP dates back to February 2004, when he joined the party along with a number of film and television personalities, including Navjot Singh Sidhu and Gajendra Chauhan. He was formally inducted as a BJP member on February 17, 2004, as the party brought several entertainment personalities into its campaign ahead of that year’s Lok Sabha election.

During the 2004 election campaign, Suresh was an active campaigner for the BJP. He campaigned for the party in Meghalaya and elsewhere and publicly backed Vajpayee’s leadership.

At the time, Suresh Oberoi said his decision to join the BJP had been his own. “I flew to Delhi on my own…and headed to Advani to express my willingness to join BJP,” he said in April 2004. He also said he had no ambition to become a minister or contest an election.