Patna, March 22: Film director Prakash Jha has responded to, what he terms, the people’s call “not to keep sitting on the fence” and decided to take a plunge into the big bad world of Bihar politics.

“Whenever I travelled in Bihar, people would tell me not to keep waiting in the wings and ask me, instead, to join them in their small little struggles. Yes, I have decided to join them, but not through any political party since I feel none are worth a try,” the maker of Gangaajal, released last year, told The Telegraph from Bettiah, the seat he has decided to contest as an Independent.

The Lok Sabha constituency in West Champaran district, represented by senior BJP leader Madan Prasad Jaiswal in the 13th House, is where Jha belongs — he hails from Barharwa village of Chanpatia block in the state’s sugar and rice bowl.

“I cannot align with any party; none are worth a try because they are miles away from people’s problems. I have taken a very serious, difficult and responsible decision in my full senses. People of this place do not know how far the modern world has gone. They are still living in a past that is oppressive,” said Jha, whose second film Damul (1985) won a national award.

The director’s better known films — Hip Hip Hurray (1984), Damul, Mrityudand (1997) and Gangaajal — have all had Bihar in their backdrop. Except Hip Hip Hurray, which was set in the school environs of Ranchi, the other three were serious socio-political depictions of Bihar’s reality. Jha studied at Sainik School in Tilaiya, now in Jharkhand.

Of the other famous Bollywood personalities from Bihar, Shatrughan Sinha is already in politics while Manoj Bajpai (also from Champaran) and Patna boy Shekhar Suman are far from taking a plunge. Jha’s latest film — on socialist icon Jai Prakash Narayan — is ready for release while he will start shooting for Apharan, based on Bihar’s kidnap industry, in June. Next in line is Rajniti, which, he said, will have to “wait for some time”.

The BJP and RJD have not reacted very positively to Jha’s decision to contest, claiming he would not be able to make any difference in the elections. But the filmmaker said, “Their views need no comment from me.”

Jha said he would devote “all the time that is needed in the constituency” for the campaign and thereafter if he enters Parliament. “I will not stop making films,” he said.