Atal Bihari Vajpayee's niece Karuna Shukla joins Congress

NEW DELHI: Much to the embarrassment of BJP’s prime ministerial hopeful Narendra Modi, the Congress on Thursday got his party’s stalwart and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s niece Karuna Shukla to join Congress by hailing its “tradition of upholding democratic and secular principles”.

Shukla, a former member of Parliament and national vice-president of BJP, who had resigned from the party in December last year, has accused her former party of deviating from the Vajpayee era and slammed Modi’s campaign promises as “plain dishonesty”.

This could cause some discomfiture in the Modi camp since he has been citing the Vajpayee era as the touchstone of good governance. Targeting Modi from the Congress podium, Shukla said, “BJP has declared such a person its prime ministerial candidate who didn’t fulfil the duty of raj dharma when he was chief minister. If such a person talks about discharging rashtradharma, I will call it plain dishonesty.”