Congress leader and close aide of former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, Syed Jafar and various other party leaders on March 18 joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The induction of Mr. Jafar, who hails from Chhindwara, is seen as part of the BJP’s continuous efforts to strengthen its prospects in Mr. Nath’s bastion, which was the only Lok Sabha constituency of M.P. that the Congress had won in 2019 parliamentary elections.
Mr. Nath’s son, Nakul Nath had won from the seat in 2019 and has again been fielded by the Congress from Chhindwara, while the BJP has named its district unit president Vivek ‘Bunty’ Sahu as its candidate.
Chhindwara, along with five other Lok Sabha constituencies of the State, will go to polls in the first phase of elections on April 19.
Apart from Mr. Jafar, various other Congress functionaries and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)‘s State in-charge Sakharam Verma also joined the BJP.
Mr. Jafar, a former vice-president of the State Congress’s media department, joins the long fray of former Congress leaders who have switched over to the BJP since January.
Earlier this month, former Union Minister and Congress veteran Suresh Pachouri ended his nearly five-decade association with the Congress and joined the BJP. The ruling party has inducted several Congress workers and leaders from across the State in the past three months.
Various Congress functionaries and leaders from Chhindwara have also moved over to the BJP recently as the saffron party has intensified its efforts to snatch the seat from the Congress.
As per Mr. Jafar’s biodata on social media platform X, he was general secretary of the MPCC unit, but State Congress’ media department head K. K. Mishra said that he “never officialy held this position”.
Speaking to a TV news channel after his induction into the BJP in Bhopal, Mr. Jafar said that his relations with Mr. Nath and his family “will remain intact”.
“But, this time Chhindwara’s public wants Bunty Sahu to be its MP and we have come [to the BJP] to support him,” he said.
He, however, did not comment on last month’s media reports that Mr. Nath could shift loyalties and join the BJP himself.
Mr. Jafar also slammed the Congress for “disrespecting and confusing the Muslim community”. “I will try to end this confusion,” he said.
Hours before joining the BJP, Mr. Jafar had shared a few pictures with Mr. Nath and Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who had jumped from Congress to BJP in 2020, on X.
Last week, Mr. Jafar had also posted various messages in support of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, after the Union government notified the Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024.
