Veteran leader and former Minister Ghanshyam Tiwari rejoined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Jaipur on Saturday, two-and-a-half years after he left the party over differences with the then Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and the party’s central leadership. Mr. Tiwari had floated a new outfit, Bharat Vahini Party, ahead of the 2018 Rajasthan Assembly election.
A six-time BJP MLA and considered a hardliner, Mr. Tiwari had extended support to the Congress after his party lost all the 63 Assembly seats it contested in the 2018 election. He had shared dais with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi at a function in Jaipur and said it was important to support the party “for [the] protection of democratic values”.
On Saturday, the 72-year-old leader, who was one of the founders of the BJP in the State in 1980, told reporters at the BJP State headquarters in Jaipur that he had not joined Congress or become a primary member of the party. “I simply shared the stage in a programme of the Congress before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections,” he said.
Mr. Tiwari said he was “completely committed” to the BJP’s ideology and his “heart and soul” were with the Bharatiya Jan Sangh and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. “I had to float the Bharat Vahini Party owing to some circumstances... I did not take part in the protests organised by the Congress against the Citizenship Amendment Act and abrogation of Article 370.”
Mr. Tiwari was the Education Minister in the 2003-08 Vasundhara Raje government and the Deputy Leader of Opposition during the previous Congress regime. He had been at loggerheads with the Ms. Raje-led dispensation over the issues such as farmers’ plight, corruption and reservation for higher castes.
BJP State president Satish Poonia said Mr. Tiwari’s return to the party fold was not an exception. “Leaders like Uma Bharti, Kalyan Singh and Babulal Marandi joined back after the leaving the BJP,” he said.
