In a bit of an embarrassment to the Congress party, days after their Vice President Rahul Gandhi paid a visit to his parliamentary constituency Amethi, a local leader has now quit the party and has joined the BJP.
As per reports, a local Congress leader of Amethi named Jang Bahadur Singh, announced his decision on Monday to join the BJP. Singh earlier was a BSP MLA from 2003 to 2007 before joining the Congress. He claimed that he was disappointed with the party’s policies and was enthused by BJP’s development oriented politics.
According to him, projects which were started earlier (possibly by the congress), had slowed down significantly thereby causing a sense of agony. But he claimed that with the arrival of Union Minister Smriti Irani (who fought the 2014 elections from Amethi), there has been a visible shift in the region. He claimed that unlike Congress which was ignoring its workers, Smirti Irani was honouring them and was also showing inclination towards the region’s development.
He also heavily criticised the Congress by claiming that despite having a government at the centre for two terms, no significant step had been taken to develop the region. He also took potshots at Rahul Gandhi by terming his statement, “Congress will do in six months what the Modi government has not been able to do so far” as laughable.
Incidentally this defection by Singh came merely days after Rahul Gandhi’s tour of the region. It was reported that Rahul Gandhi had reached his constituency on Wednesday for a 3 day visit. This visit was his first since the assembly elections in the state.
This defection of Singh also came just a day ahead of a scheduled visit of Amit Shah to Amethi. The preparations for this visit on Tuesday were reportedly overseen by Smriti Irani. Such a show of strength by the BJP, according to the report indicates that the party is planning a fight to win the seat in 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
