Chandigarh: Dealing a body blow to the ruling BJP, the former state Congress president Ashok Tanwar quit the saffron party and returned to the grand old party in presence of party leader Rahul Gandhi at latter's rally in Mahendergarh on Thursday, a day ahead of the poll-bound Haryana assembly election.
Former Congress MP Tanwar, who had unsuccessfully fought the Sirsa Lok Sabha election on BJP ticket earlier this year, against the Congress’ Kumari Selja, had joined BJP in January, 2024, in the presence of national president J P Nadda and former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar.
Tanwar, 48, who won his first Lok Sabha election as Congress candidate in 2009, had lost his next election in 2014 to Indian National Lok Dal’s Charanjit Rori; he was made the state Congress chief in February the same year and was replaced by senior Congress leader Kumari Selja in September, 2019. He quit the party in October that year.
However, he joined Aam Aadmi Party in 2022; But, before it he had also floated his own party and even hopped over to Trinamool Congress (TMC) for a brief period.
Tanwar, a prominent Dalit community leader, had left Congress following bitter differences with the former state chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in 2019. Tanwar, who was the youngest president of the Congress’ students wing NSUI and youth wing Youth Congress, was said to be close to the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Tanwar’s wife Avantika, who was daughter of Congress leader late Lalit Maken and Geetanjali - who were assassinated by Sikh terrorists in Delhi in 1985 - was also said to be close to the Gandhi family.
