4 Punjab ex-Cong ministers join BJP
Grateful that the elite who enjoyed all the privileges in the party have vacated the space for younger leadership.
AMARINDER SINGH RAJA WARRING, Punjab Cong chief
CHANDIGARH: The Congress in Punjab received a jolt on Saturday when four former ministers of the party — Balbir Sidhu, Raj Kumar Verka, Gurpreet Singh Kangar and Sundar Sham Arora — joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in presence of Union home minister Amit Shah.
Shah, who was on a day’s tour of Chandigarh to inaugurate the Khelo India sports event in Panchkula, inducted the former ministers along with two former chief parliamentary secretaries from the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) — Sarup Chand Singla and Bibi Mohinder Kaur Josh — into the party.
Businessman and former Congress MLA from Barnala Kewal Singh Dhillon and Congress’ sitting mayor from Mohali Amarjeet Singh Sidhu also joined the BJP. The mayor is brother of former health minister Balbir Sidhu. Former Congress MLA Kamaljeet S Dhillon, late Amrik Singh Dhillon’s son, also joined the BJP ranks.
The former ministers who joined the BJP were considered close to then chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh. Three of them, except Verka, were removed as ministers after Amarinder was unceremoniously replaced by Charanjit Singh Channi some four months before the assembly elections.
Verka, a three-time MLA from Amritsar West, was the face of the party in the media and had served as vice-chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes during the UPA regime in New Delhi.
Arora, a former industries minister and former Hoshiarpur lawmaker, was recently made vice-president of the Punjab Congress unit.
Sidhu, a former health minister, is a three-time MLA from Mohali. Kangar, a former revenue minister, too, had won from the Rampura seat thrice.
In the past few months, the country has witnessed a number of leaders from various opposition parties joining the BJP. Recently, former Congress leader Hardik Patel, who quit the Congress last month, joined the BJP, months ahead of the assembly elections in Gujarat, while the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) retired colonel Ajay Kothiyal had also joined the party in Uttarakhand on May 24.
The development came amid the regular shifts taking place from different parties to the centre-ruling party, including Congress’ Sunil Jakhar, Pramod Madhwaraj, and Ashwin Kotwal.
Jakhar, being the former Congress leader and former Punjab party chief joined the BJP on May 19, whereas Madhwarajthe former Karnataka Minister was welcomed by the state party chief Basavaraj Bommai on May 7. Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring took to Twitter saying: “Best of luck for Joining BJP. Grateful that the ‘elite’ who enjoyed all the privileges in the party have vacated the space for younger leadership from common background.”
The BJP’s attempts to make its presence felt in Punjab failed when it managed to win only two seats of the 73 it contested in the 2022 assembly polls. It was BJP’s worst-ever performance in the last five assembly polls even as its vote share witnessed a slight increase of 6.8%.
Addressing BJP workers at party headquarters in Chandigarh, Amit Shah said the BJP will play a big role in the politics of Punjab and will emerge as the largest party in the state in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Putting all political rumours to rest, the Union minister said the BJP will contest elections on its own and whosoever wanted to join it will have to contest on its ‘lotus’ symbol.
“Anyone wanting to join us will have to come as smaller partner and contest under the ‘kamal’. We played the role of smaller partner earlier but now the BJP will play a bigger role for the communal harmony,” he said. Taking a dig at the AAP, Shah said that in just three months, its face of “deceit and deception has been exposed”.
“I want to assure the people of Punjab that the Centre and the country stand with every citizen of the state and this crisis situation will not be allowed to worsen,” he said.