New Delhi: With the Lok Sabha battle set to kick-start in less than a month, disgruntled politicians across the country are joining political parties offering them greener pastures.
Almost all parties have been hit hard, in state after state, although the Congress, India’s oldest political outfit, is the worst sufferer amid growing signs that it is set for major electoral reverses.
In contrast, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by a confident Narendra Modi, the Gujarat chief minister, has won over most deserters nationally as well as LJP leader Ramvilas Paswan as an ally in Bihar.
Nowhere has the Congress suffered more than in Andhra Pradesh, where its decision to create a Telangana state has led to mass desertions, with N Kiran Kumar Reddy, the last chief minister, forming a new party.
Another prominent defector is D Purandeswari, a central minister who too dumped the Congress to embrace the BJP.
In Telangana region, the Telugu Desam Party saw three former legislators cross over to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi.
Karnataka’s tainted former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa is back with the BJP.
One of the biggest blows to the Congress came in Haryana — the birthplace of ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’ culture — when Ambala legislator Venod Sharma, a confident of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, has quit.
So has Congress MP and former union minister Rao Inderjit Singh, who has joined the BJP.
Nowhere is the defection spree more pronounced than in Bihar, where the April-May election is expected to see a three-way battle involving the Janata Dal-United (JD-U), the Congress-RJD alliance and the BJP.
Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad’s biggest setback was the defection of senior leader Ram Kirpal Yadav, who is joining the BJP. Yadav is now set to take on Lalu Prasad’s daughter in the very constituency where he was not allowed to be the RJD candidate.
Another prominent RJD leader, Ghulam Ghouse, has joined the JD-U. So has BJP’s suspended legislator Avinash Kumar Singh.
The JD-U has also suffered desertions to the BJP - the two parties were allies for 17 long years until 2013. JD-U legislator Chedi Paswan has gone over to the BJP.
IANS
