MP Congress candidate named in first list joins BJP

In a setback to the Congress party in Madhya Pradesh, retired IAS officer and Congress candidate from Bhind parliamentary constituency Bhagirath Prasad on Sunday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Prasad's decision to leave the Congress fold and join BJP comes a day after the former party decided to field him from Bhind.

Prasad took membership of the BJP at the party office here in presence of party's state president Narendra Singh Tomar and other senior leaders.

After joining BJP, Prasad, who held several important posts in government during the Congress regime, said that he decided to join BJP suddenly as he had firm belief in saffron party’s able leadership qualities and was influenced by party’s commitment to the poor.

The top party leaders had given him full support, he said and alleged that Congress leaders have no effect on grassroots levels.

Prasad had unsuccessfully contested the last Lok Sabha elections in 2009 on Congress party ticket from the same seat.

Earlier, about five months ago, Congress leader and Loksabha MP from Hoshangabad constituency Rao Udaipratap Singh joined BJP just before the Assembly polls while deputy leader of the opposition in state Assembly Rakesh Singh Chaturvedi also defected from Congress to join the BJP fold in July last year.

According to BJP sources, “Top leaders of the state party unit were in touch with him and are still in parleys with some of the senior Congress leaders.”

The BJP has launched "Mission-29" to register victory in all the 29 Lok Sabha seats from Madhya Pradesh.

Lok Sabha elections will be held in three phases in the state on April 10, April 17 and April 24. Rewa, Sidhi, Shahdol, Satna, Mandla, Jabalpur, Chhindwara, Hoshangabad and Balaghat will vote on April 10, while Bhind, Morena, Gwalior, Sagar, Guna, Tikamgarh, Khajuraho, Damoh, Bhopal and Rajgarh will go to polls on April 17. On April 24, Mandsaur, Ujjain, Dewas, Vidisha, Ratlam, Dhar, Indore, Khargone, Khandwa and Betul constituencies will go to polls.