Priyanka Gandhi aide and Congress Himachal co-incharge Tajinder Singh Bittu resigns from party

New Delhi: A Congress national secretary, who was perceived to be close to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and the wife of a late MP quit the grand old party and joined the BJP on Saturday.

Congress Secretary Tejinder Singh Bittu, who was also co in-charge of the party in Himachal Pradesh, quit the Congress hours before joining the BJP. Along with him, Karamjit Kaur Choudhary, the wife of late Congress MP Santokh Singh Chaudhary, too joined the saffron fold.

Chaudhury had contested as a Congress candidate last year in the bypoll to the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat, which fell vacant after the death of her husband due to a heart attack during in the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Punjab. She had lost to AAP's Sushil Kumar Rinku, who also joined the BJP.

They joined the party in the presence of Union Minister Ashwani Vaishnaw and BJP General Secretary Vinod Tawde among others. Tawde said their joining will boost the party in Punjab where the polls are scheduled for June 1.

Bittu, who has been in the party for 35 years, said he was feeling "suffocated" in the Congress. "Three-four power centres work in the Congress and all of them seek to function independently without having any coordination," he told reporters.

He claimed that Punjab had lagged behind in every field during the Congress rule but only Prime Minister Narendra Modi can take Punjab forward.

Chaudhary alleged that the Congress openly ignored the sacrifice of her late husband while saying that the top Congress leadership should introspect on their working style.