BJP leader Padma Shukla quits party in MP, joins Congress

The BJP suffered a setback in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh after its senior leader Padma Shukla Monday quit the party and joined the Congress.

After resigning as MP State Social Welfare Board chairperson, by virtue of which she held cabinet minister rank, Shukla (63) joined the Congress, along with 150 BJP workers, at a function chaired by MP Congress chief Kamal Nath here.

"I have resigned from the primary membership of BJP and as chairperson of the Social Welfare Board," Shukla, who had been with the BJP for 38 years, said Monday.

She was reportedly not getting along well with MP minister Sanjay Pathak, the latter having joined the ruling party from the Congress.

Shukla had fought against Pathak, then a Congress candidate, from the Vijayraghavgarh Assembly seat in the 2103 polls and lost by a margin of 929 votes.

Pathak then resigned as Congress MLA, joined the BJP and got relected from Vijayraghavgarh in a bypoll in 2014. He was later made a minister in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.

"I have left the BJP due to the humiliation meted out to party workers after the 2014 Vijayraghavgarh bypoll," she said Monday.

Nath told reporters Monday that Shukla had joined the Congress as she wanted to stand with righteousness.