As Jitin Prasada Joins BJP, Congress Leaders Call for Introspection

Lucknow: Reacting to former Union minister and party leader Jitin Prasada’s move of switching over to the BJP, Aditi Singh, Congress MLA from Raebareli (Sadar), on Wednesday traded guns at the party leadership and said that it’s about time the party did some introspection.

“One by one all young and dynamic leaders are leaving the party. The leadership should introspect on the issue. I am sure Jitin Prasad has taken a decision after doing much thinking. He has been a Union Minister at a young age and he is a dynamic leader. Congress’s loss is BJPs gain,” Singh told News18 in Lucknow.

In a setback for the Congress ahead of the 2022 assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Prasada, who had been disillusioned with the grand old party, switched over to the BJP on Wednesday.

Prasada, who was also part of the G-23 group in Congress that had written a letter registering its dissent with the party leadership, joined the saffron party in the presence of BJP chief JP Nadda after meeting Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal.

Congress leader Rashid Alvi urged the senior Congress leaders to connect with cadre from the grassroots level. “Congress should introspect and seek accountability they should talk to people at the grassroots When someone is weak, people often leave them,” he said.

Aditi Singh had earlier expressed her support to the BJP-led central government’s move to abrogate provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution that abrogated Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.

The UP Congress had written to the Speaker seeking disqualification of Raebareli legislator Singh for defying the party whip and attending a special assembly session organised by the Adityanath government last year to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Singh was absent from party’s training session in Raebareli last October and was served a show cause notice by the then CLP leader Ajay Kumar Lallu.

However, Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit had quashed the party’s plea against its rebel lawmaker Aditi Singh.

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