“There’s no question of changing the seat. Patna is his native place and he will contest from Patna Sahib only,” a close aide of Sinha said on Friday. He added that many political parties and leaders had approached him in the past, too, but it didn’t mean he would change his constituency.

Sinha won from Patna Sahib on a BJP ticket by a margin of over 2.65 lakh votes in 2014. Talking to The Telegraph on April 22, he had categorically said there was no question of changing his seat. “Irrespective of the situation prevailing at that time, I will not change location as far as contesting the next election is concerned,” Sinha had said in response to a query on the possibility of his changing his seat in the wake of his party neglecting him and not inviting him to its programmes.

The BJP has not changed its stance. Even on Thursday, Sinha was not invited to a party meeting chaired by Bihar in-charge Bhupender Yadav to assess poll preparedness for four Lok Sabha constituencies including Sinha’s Patna Sahib seat. Pataliputra MP Ram Kripal Yadav, who joined the BJP in 2014, was invited to the meet, but Sinha was ignored.

“We have stopped inviting him to party events as for all practical purposes he is with our political adversaries now,” a BJP functionary said.

Narendra Modi File picture

Rebel BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha is keeping everybody guessing after some Samajwadi Party leaders asked him to contest from Varanasi — the seat Prime Minister Narendra Modi represents in the Lok Sabha — in next year’s general election.

Reached for a comment on the likelihood of him changing his constituency from Patna Sahib to Varanasi, Shotgun, as Shatrughan is called, told The Telegraph over phone from Lucknow that he had not stated anything on the issue yet.

But he added a twist, saying: “I would neither confirm nor deny (it) at the moment.”

He said this was a period of churning for various political parties, his supporters and well-wishers and it would not be politically correct to say anything conclusive for now.

Earlier in the day, Shotgun’s close aides had scuttled speculation that he could contest the next Lok Sabha elections from Varanasi.

Some went as far as to say he would not change his seat irrespective of what offers comes his way. Sinha, who generally remains in Patna on October 11 — birth anniversary of the late socialist icon Jayaprakash Narayan — was this time in Lucknow where Samajwadi Party leaders offered him the Varanasi seat.