With the Congress and the Samajwadi Party prospects apparently looking bleak in Lok Sabha elections, its MPs are deserting the party to join the BJP.
On Friday, Union Minister D Purandeswari met Advani and top BJP leaders even as Uttar Pradesh MP Jagdambika Pal quit the Congress. Both are likely to join the BJP.
A day after declaring her intention of joining the BJP in her Visakhapatnam constituency, TDP founder N T Rama Rao’s daughter Purandeswari met Advani in presence of other leaders.
BJP leader from Andhra Pradesh, M Venkaiah Naidu said she had come to seek Advani’s blessing. Though she claims she does not have any precondition, she said she wants to contest from Visakhapatnam in Seemandhra region. Post meeting, she did not respond to media queries. Her MLA husband is also expected to join the saffron party.
Another Congress MP Jagdambika Pal resigned from the Lok Sabha and the party as he is hobnobbing to cross over to the BJP.
Dumariyaganj MP Pal has also had meeting with BJP leaders and has been able to assuage apprehension of party’s Gorakhpur Lok Sabha member Yodi Adityanath who was opposed to having any truck with him.
“I met Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Friday and tendered my resignation. I have resigned from my Lok Sabha seat as well as from the party,” he told reporters.
He said he felt isolated in the party but denied that he wanted to leave Congress since he is not confident of retaining his Lok Sabha seat.
“The Congress did not come to power in UP since 1989 but I stayed with the party, kept defending its policies. At the age of 65, I am leaving the Congress party and it is not because I want to get something. But, for sometime, I am feeling that there is no longer any need for senior leaders like us in the Congress,” he said.
Pal had earlier also quit the Congress and formed the Loktantrik Congress Party to become a minister in the BJP government in the state but he had returned to the BJP fold later.
Another MP, from Samajwadi Party, Brijbhushan Sharan Singh is all set to join the BJP. Singh apprised his decision to quit in a letter to Speaker Meira Kumar where he said that SP has diverted from development agenda and failed to maintain communal harmony after forming government in Uttar Pradesh.”
