Churu MP Rahul Kaswan, denied BJP ticket for Lok Sabha polls, joins Congress
BJP MP Rahul Kaswan resigned from the party after being denied a ticket for Lok Sabha elections.
Churu MP Rahul Kaswan on Monday joined Congress in the presence of party president Mallikarjun Kharge shortly after announcing his resignation from the BJP.
“I would like to thank Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, and senior leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Govind Singh Dotasra and others for allowing me to join Congress,” Kaswan said at a press conference.
Kaswan was denied a BJP ticket to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Churu.
Earlier today, Kaswan said in a post on X that he has taken a "big decision in public life".
"Due to political reasons, at this very moment today, I am resigning from the primary membership of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the post of Member of Parliament," he added.
Kaswan also thanked the BJP, its national president JP Nadda, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah for giving him the “opportunity to serve the Churu Lok Sabha family for 10 years.”
Kaswan's switch to Congress comes days after the BJP announced its Lok Sabha poll candidates for 15 out of 25 seats in Rajasthan, replacing the sitting MP with Paralympian Devendra Jhajharia.
The Churu parliamentary seat has turned into a BJP citadel with the Kaswan family winning it successively since the 2004 general elections. BJP leader Ram Singh Kaswan won the seat in 2004 and 2009 while his son Rahul Kaswan bagged it for the saffron party in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Kaswan's name axed in 2024
The Churu MP had expressed his exasperation after being denied a ticket by the party for the 2024 general elections and took to social media to ask, “What was my crime after all?”
Kaswan said, “What was my crime after all? Was I not honest? Was I not hard-working? Was I not loyal? Was I tainted? Did I leave any stone unturned in getting the work done in Churu Lok Sabha?”
"I was at the forefront in the implementation of all schemes of the prime minister. What else was needed? Whenever I asked this question, everyone remained speechless. No one is able to answer this," he said.
The sitting MPs who have been denied nomination to fight the upcoming polls include Rahul Kaswan (Churu), Ranjita Koli (Bharatpur), Devji Patel (Jalore), Arjun Lal Meena (Udaipur) and Kanakmal Katara (Banswara).
However, the party is yet to announce candidates for 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state.