In a setback to the ruling BJP in Rajasthan, Nagaur MLA Habib-ur-Rahman, who had resigned from the party after being denied ticket for the Assembly election, on Wednesday returned to the Congress after a decade. Mr. Rahman was elected MLA thrice on Congress ticket and as a BJP candidate in 2008 and 2013.
Mr. Rahman joined the Congress at the Pradesh Congress Committee headquarters here in the presence of Ajmer MP Raghu Sharma, PCC vice-president Archana Sharma and other senior leaders.
‘No preconditions’
At a press conference, Mr. Rahman said he had come back to the Congress “without any preconditions” and would work for strengthening the party.
Mr. Rahman said he had been associated with the Congress since 1959, when his father Haji Usman was a sarpanch and was later elected as an MLA in 1962.
“I represented the Mundwa constituency thrice as a Congress MLA and was a Minister in the Congress government from 2001 to 2003. Coming to the Congress fold is like coming back home,” Mr. Rahman said. Mr. Rahman resigned from the BJP’s primary membership after the party dropped him in the first list of 131 candidates released on Sunday and fielded Mohan Ram Chaudhary from Nagaur. No Muslim candidate has figured in the BJP’s first list.
Mr. Raghu Sharma, who is also PCC publicity committee president, said even the veteran leaders were feeling “suffocated” in the BJP.
