In what comes as a major jolt for the Haryana Congress ahead of the assembly polls in the state in October, senior party leader Kiran Choudhry and her daughter Shruti Choudhry quit the party and joined the BJP.
Kiran Choudhry and Shruti Choudhry resigned from the primary membership of the Congress on Tuesday. Shruti was also the working president of the Haryana unit of the Congress.
The mother-daughter duo joined the saffron party in the presence of Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, Union minister Manohar Lal Khattar and party national general secretary Tarun Chugh.
After joining the BJP, Kiran Choudhry claimed that the Congress has become an individual-centric party in Haryana. "I was a very dedicated worker of the Congress. I dedicated my life to Congress with hard work. But for a few years, I watched the Haryana Congress become an individual-centric party. They didn't want Congress to go ahead and followed such policies. So, you can understand that Congress would have never progressed in Haryana. Big leaders quit the party due to them. I took this step to ensure that my workers get their due rights, equal rights," news agency ANI quoted her as saying.
“I am inspired by the prime minister, who has taken historic decisions for the welfare of the country and made India's name shine across the world. It is a matter of pride for us that Modi ji and Khattar ji have worked with Chaudhary Bansi Lal ji. The way Bansi Lal worked hard, we are joining the BJP with the same hard work," Shruti Choudhry, who the working president of the Haryana unit of the Congress, was quoted as saying.
Kiran Choudhry is the daughter-in-law of former Haryana chief minister Bansi Lal.
'Haryana Congress being run as personal fiefdom'
In their resignation letters, the duo took a veiled dig at former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, alleging that the party's state unit is being run as a "personal fiefdom".
"It is most unfortunate that the Congress party in Haryana is being run as the personal fiefdom leaving no space for sincere voices like mine, who have been stifled, humiliated and conspired against in a most well-orchestrated and systematic manner, thus, significantly hampering my diligent efforts to represent our people and uphold the values, I have always stood for," wrote Kiran Choudhry in her letter to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge.
"The Congress party in Haryana has, unfortunately, become one-person centric who has compromised the interest of the party for his own selfish and petty interests and it is thus time for me to move on so that I may continue to uphold the interest of my people and the values that I stand for," the resignation letter of Shruti Choudhry read.
Congress plays it down
The Congress has claimed that the departure of the mother-daughter duo won't affect the electoral prospects of the party. "No this isn't affecting Congress at all. She (Kiran Choudhry) said that Congress has no future in Haryana, so she is going there where she thinks her future is secured. She left because her daughter was not given a ticket, this has nothing to do with ideology," news agency ANI quoted Haryana Congress chief Udai Bhan as saying.