Lok Sabha Polls: BJP MLA, BSP MP, 2 ex-MPs join Congress

A sitting BJP MLA, a BSP Lok Sabha member and two former members of Parliament joined Congress on Wednesday, offering the main Opposition a respite from a serial outflow of its members to the ruling party. All four - Jai Prakash Bhai Patel, BJP MLA from Jharkhand; Danish Ali, member of the outgoing Lok Sabha and suspended BSP leader; and former MPs Pappu Yadav of Bihar and Chowdhury Lal Singh of Jammu - are slated to fight the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on Congress ticket.

Patel, also the whip of BJP in Jharkhand assembly, had been a JMM MLA before. Son of a former JMM MP, he is expected to contest as Congress candidate from Hazaribagh. in the upcoming polls. "I have joined Congress not for any greed or post but for its ideology and to fulfil the dreams my father had for the state," Patel said.

Ali joining the Congress was just a formality as he had already joined the second Rahul Gandhi-led yatra at Manipur and has already been informally chosen as Congress candidate from Amroha in Uttar Pradesh, which he won on BSP ticket in 2019. Chowdhary Lal Singh, a former Congress Lok Sabha MP from Udhampur who later became a BJP minister in J&K before he floated his own party, joined Congress by merging his Dogra Swabhiman Party.