Since independence, Indian political groups have witnessed defections, dispossessions, and divisions in their ranks, with distinct factors driving political turmoil in each stage. The presence of a powerful political party with a substantial majority at the Centre and solid administrations in a wide range of states now ensures these divisions and dethronements of elected governments.
Apparently, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) engineering has been ably supplemented by a continually deteriorating Congress and its failure to retain party personnel, as these two organizations have become the principal protagonists in the defection drama in recent years.
Let’s look at some of the prominent leaders who defected to the BJP in 2022
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Jaiveer Shergill
He was a former Congress politician from Punjab who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on December 2, 2022. Notably, on August 24, Jaiveer Shergill withdrew as the Congress Party’s National Spokesman and left the party. He presented his resignation to Party-acting President Sonia Gandhi, claiming that decision-makers’ visions were no longer in touch with the expectations of the youth.
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Harsh Mahajan
He was a senior Congress politician from Himachal Pradesh and joined the BJP in 2022. He officially entered the party in the attendance of national general secretary Vinod Tawde and union minister Piyush Goyal as its working president.
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Mohansinh Rathava
He was a seasoned tribal politician of the Congress who has won Assembly elections ten times, withdrew from the INC, and endorsed the Bharatiya Janata Party on November 09, 2022. In the attendance of the party’s general secretary, Bhargav Bhatt and Pradipsinh Vaghela, he entered the BJP at the party’s media centre, which was set up specifically for the 2022 Assembly elections.
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SL Lingaraju and S Sachidananda
Several Congress officials, including these two prominent leaders, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on November 30, 2022, in the party’s Malleswaram headquarters in Bengaluru, before the 2023 assembly polls. The decision is interpreted as the BJP’s attempt to expand its presence in the area, a Congress and Janata Dal-Secular bastion.
Various other Leaders from Punjab resigned from Congress and joined BJP
The Congress suffered a huge loss in Punjab when four members and former legislators, Balbir Singh Sidhu, Raj Kumar Verka, Gurpreet Singh, and Sunder Sham Arora, Kangar, entered the BJP on June 5, 2022. In addition, Kewal Dhillon, an erstwhile Congress MLA from Barnala, has joined the BJP.
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Rajkumar Rinwa and Jaideep Dudi
On November 26, 2022, these two leaders joined the BJP in the Churu district. According to a party spokeswoman, both individuals entered the fray in the audience of BJP state in-charge, national general secretary Arun Singh, and state chairman Satish Poonia.
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Mohd Qayoom Mir
On June 12, 2022, a senior Congress politician who was a chosen DDC Representative from Thanamandi in District Rajouri and Workers joined the Bhartiya Janata Party in a gathering in Rajouri. Sh. Ravinder Raina addressed the occasion and greeted the new members of the BJP fraternity. He claimed that Mohd Qayoom Mir was a prominent Congress leader who strongly influenced the Pahari population in Rajouri and Poonch.
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Amarinder Singh
He follows a lengthy list of erstwhile chief ministers from other parties who have recently joined the BJP, including Digamber Kamat and S M Krishna. In the attendance of Central ministers Kiren Rijiju and Narendra Singh Tomar, Singh entered the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Singh served as Punjab’s chief minister twice, between the year 2002 to 2007 and then subsequently from March 2017 to September 2021, before being overthrown by Congress.
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Marri Shashidhar Reddy
He is a Congress politician who defected to the BJP on November 25, 2022, blaming the grand old party for failing to control the purported misrule of the KCR administration in Telangana. After meeting Union Minister Amit Shah in Delhi, Reddy was suspended from the Congress. He afterwards resigned from Congress. Union ministers Kishan Reddy and Sarbananda Sonowal were gathered when Reddy entered the BJP at its headquarters in Hyderabad.
