Over Issue Of Attacks On Sanatana Dharma, Two Congress Leaders Including Gaurav Vallabh Join BJP

Hours after leaving the party, former Congress national spokesperson Gourav Vallabh joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday (4 April), along with former Bihar Congress president Anil Sharma.

Another leader from Bihar, Upendra Prasad, who was the Mahagathbandhan candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Aurangabad on HAM ticket, also joined the BJP.

Gourav Vallabh resigned earlier in the day citing Congress' stance on Ayodhya's Ram Mandir, abuses hurled at the wealth creators and anti-Sanatana Dharma slogans and that he felt the party was directionless.

On joining the BJP, he reiterated that he couldn't accept Congress' rejection of the Ram Mandir invitation and questioned why no response was given to anti-Sanatana Dharma remarks of Congress' ally parties.

He added that wealth creation and the policies of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation can't be wrong. He was attracted to Viksit Bharat vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hence joined BJP.

Anil Sharma too expressed similar sentiments and asserted that Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former president Sonia Gandhi claim to be secular but have the most communal idea.

He quoted Kharge's statement that if Modi comes to power, Sanatana Dharma and RSS will rule. He also cited Sonia Gandhi's rejection to Ram Mandir invitation but sending representatives to Rome over Mother Teresa's sainthood ceremony.

Sharma also took a dig at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and said that he doesn't wear janeu over clothes. He asked Gandhi to open mohabbat ki dukan in areas like Jammu and Kashmir, which are not peaceful.

Former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Upendra Prasad criticised Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav and blamed them for burying the idea of socialism under their dynastic politics.

He shared that since he lost in 2019 by a narrow margin, he expected a Lok Sabha ticket this time as well. However, he claimed that bidding was taking place for ticket distribution and then he decided to leave the party.