Former Congress spokesperson Rohan Gupta joins BJP

He had resigned from the Congress last month after withdrawing his candidature from Ahmedabad East Lok Sabha constituency.

New Delhi: Congress spokesperson and former social media chief Rohan Gupta on Thursday joined a long list of leaders who left the Congress to join the BJP. Gupta, who was fielded from the Ahmedabad East constituency, had recused himself from the fight last month citing his father’s ill-health.

Gupta joined the BJP in the presence of senior leaders including Vinod Tawde, who has been instrumental in several such joinings, and then met union home minister Amit Shah. 

After he joined the BJP, at the party headquarters, Gupta took potshots at Congress’s communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh. “There is a communication in-charge who has ‘Ram’ in his name, who told us to keep quiet when Sanatan (Dharma) was being insulted. An alliance using the country’s name was made but ‘desh virodhi takatein’ (anti-India forces) were included in it. What is the compulsion that Kejriwal who was accused of being connected with Khalistanis today is being supported by them,” Gupta alleged. 

Gupta, who was in-charge of the Congress’s social media operations till 2021, had left the party last month, alleging that he faced “constant humiliation”. 

“The person who has humiliated me for (the) last two years, the person who has not budged from doing it in the last three days, I am sure that he will not refrain from doing it in future and nobody else will be able to stop him. But now, I am not ready to take any more assault on my self-esteem,” Gupta had then said. 

He added that the same leader has “damaged” the party also with his “arrogant and rude” behaviour. “Due to his extreme leftist mindset he ensured the party’s silence on the insult of Sanatan Dharma which hurt me personally and I was forcefully stopped from opposition insult of sanatan dharma on national TV. This has done serious damage to the party image and to the morale of the party’s leaders,” he said.  

Gupta is the second prominent spokesperson after Gourav Vallabh who has joined the BJP in recent days.