Gourav Vallabh joins BJP hours after quitting Congress citing 'suffocation'

A day after quitting Congress, senior leader Gourav Vallabh on Thursday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), adding to the long list of the grand old party jumping ship ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

Vallabh resigned from Congress citing dissatisfaction with the party's stance on multiple issues, including marks against Hindu religion.



"I wrote to (Congress national president) Mallikarjun Kharge, voicing all my misgivings and emotions. I was hurt by my party's silence when some prominent leaders in the INDIA bloc made unsavoury remarks against Sanatan. I also publicly opposed our party's stand on Ram Mandir (the 'Pran Pratishtha' of Lord Ram Lalla in Ayodhya)."

In his resignation letter, which he posted on social media platform X, Vallabh said that at present Congress' stance on economic matters has always been one that is "demeaning" to wealth creators and the party's view on every disinvestment taking place in the country has been negative.

He also stated that he was feeling suffocated by the party's stance on economic issues.

"I am a professor of Arthashastra (economics). The ideas of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, which were advocated by (former prime ministers) Dr Manmohan Singh and PV Narsimha Rao, are now being opposed by top leaders," the former Congress leader said.

"When I joined Congress, I believed that Congress is the oldest party in the country which respects youth and intellectual people and their ideas. But for some time, I felt that the party was not able to adjust with the youth having new ideas," he said.

Vallabh was on the Congress ticket in last year's Rajasthan assembly elections, which the Congress lost to the BJP.