How to remove "" from starting of a string if provided by the user

[Ganesh Pal]

How to remove " from the starting and ending of a string , before
comparison . Here is an example and my solution wtih eval ( I am advised
not to use this one) , please suggest an alternative . I am on linux and
python 2.7

g1 at X1:/tmp$ cat file2.py
#!/usr/bin/python

# Case 1 - server2 file is "'/fileno_100.txt'"
stat={}
stat['server1']  = '/fileno_100.txt'
stat['server2']  = "'/fileno_100.txt'"

if stat['server1'] == eval(stat['server2']):
    print "OK"

# Case 2 - server2 file is '/fileno_100.txt'
stat['server2']  = "'/fileno_100.txt'"

if stat['server1'] == eval(stat['server2']):
    print "OK"


# Case 3 - server2 file can be in (a) '/fileno_100.txt' or (b) :
"'/fileno_100.txt'" format

g1 at X1:/tmp$ python file2.py
OK
OK