4-time MLA & ex-Congress minister in Rajasthan joins BJP
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Jaipur: Setting a setback to the Congress party, four-time MLA and former minister of Rajasthan, Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya l left the party and joined BJP, PTI reported.
Malviya was welcomed to the BJP by the party's Rajasthan in-charge, Arun Singh, state unit chief CP Joshi and other leaders.
He said there is a double-engine government in Rajasthan, referring to the BJP dispensations in the state and at the Centre.
"Development is a big issue. There is a double-engine government here. The state and the country are transforming, and the entire world is watching," he told reporters before a joint press conference at the party office.
The BJP swept to power in Rajasthan in the assembly elections late last year. The saffron party had won 115 seats while the Congress, which governed the state between 2018 and 2023, managed victory from 70.
It was last week that the former chief minister of Maharashtra, Ashok Chavan, joined the BJP just a day after resigning from the Congress.
A prominent face for the Congress in the politically significant state, Chavan was welcomed into the BJP by Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and state party chief Chandrashekhar Bawankul. Earlier, key Congress leaders such as Milind Deora and Baba Siddique also left the party, joining different factions in Maharashtra.
Last week, former Jammu and Kashmir MLC Shahnaz Ganai also joined the BJP. She was once linked with Farooq Abdullah's National Conference (NC). Ganai joined the BJP at a ceremony attended by Tarun Chugh, the party's National General Secretary, Union Minister Jitendra Singh, and Zafar Islam, the BJP's national spokesperson.
Recently, there were rumours that former Madhya Pradesh CM and senior Congress leader Kamal Nath was going to join the saffron party, which he himself has denied. He told reporters in New Delhi that if there is such a move, he will inform the media first, PTI reported.
He had landed in the national capital on Saturday afternoon amid heavy speculations of him joining the saffron party.' He had a brief interaction with the media, and there he told them that he would inform them if he took such a decision.