Ahead of LS polls, ex-Kota MLA Gunjal quits BJP, joins Congress
Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Kota MLA Prahlad Gunjal on Thursday joined the Congress, weeks before Rajasthan is scheduled to go to Lok Sabha elections in April.
The development came days after Gunjal’s party colleague and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla was named as the BJP’s candidate from Kota-Bundi seat in the party’s very first list earlier this March.
“The politics in Kota was centralised around one leader while all the other workers who had been working so hard for a long time had been sidelined. I was feeling suffocated inside the BJP in the last few years but now I have decided not to tolerate such tyranny anymore.I can assure that 50% of the soul of the BJP in Kota was Gunjal who is joining Congress today (Thursday),” said the leader without naming Birla after joining the party in the presence of former chief minister Ashok Gehlot and party’s state president Govind Singh Dotasra.
Gunjal, who started his political career as a leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) remained two-time MLA from Kota North in 2013 and from Ramganjmandi in 2003. However, he lost the last state assembly elections in December from Kota North to the Congress leader and then cabinet minister Shanti Dhariwal by at least 2,000 votes. “After spending 40 years with the BJP, I have realised that the BJP has now space for listening to the voices of the people and its workers. Instead of ensuring safety, they have launched a politics of terror in the country. I have dared to fight for my existence and my people by joining Congress The upcoming election will give an answer to the BJP,” he added.
Accusing the BJP of playing politics of “individualism”, Gunjal said he will not bow down to any dictatorship. “I am not any leader or his brother’s slave. I had to take the decision to switch the party considering the values that brought me to the politics.”
Gunjal is also the second BJP leader after Churu MP Rahul Kaswan who joined the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. There were speculations that Gunjal might be fielded against Birla by Congress in an attempt to hold back the seat.
Congress has failed to bag the Kota-Bundi seat in the last two consecutive Lok Sabha elections, the party also had a neck-andneck battle in the eight assembly segments in the area, ending up maintaining its victory over four seats.
Welcoming Gunjal in the party, former CM Ashok Gehlot also said, “I appreciate Gunjal for having the courage to stand up to what BJP is doing. They are demolishing the constitution and exploiting the power of the ED and the CBI to finish the oppositions. The biggest example of their corruption is the electoral bond. The situation is suffocating for any genuine politician.