Tariq Anwar returns to Congress after 19 years with NCP

Tariq Anwar, who resigned from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) last month, returned to the Congress fold on Saturday, 19 years after he had quit the party along with Sharad Pawar and the late P A Sangma over the issue of foreign origin of Sonia Gandhi.

A five-time Lok Sabha MP and two-time Rajya Sabha member, Anwar, along with his supporters, met Congress president Rahul Gandhi at his Tughlaq Lane residence and was welcomed into the party fold.

"At a time when the country is passing through a critical phase, it is necessary to strengthen the Congress because if there is any alternative in the country, it is the Congress," Anwar told reporters at a press conference.

All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Ashok Gehlot, who was present at the induction, appealed to those who had quit the Congress for any reason to rejoin the party to combat the challenges faced by the country when "fascists" were at the helm of affairs.

Asked is his appeal was addressed to NCP supremo Pawar as well, Gehlot said the message was to everyone who believed in the principles and policies of the Congress.

Anwar had announced that he was quitting the NCP and was also giving up his Lok Sabha membership on September 28 after NCP chief Pawar's "defence" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Rafale fighter jet deal. NCP President Pawar was quoted in the media as having given a clean chit to Modi on the deal.

Pawar, however, had clarified he was misquoted in the reports and he had given no such clean chit to Modi.

A former president of Congress's Bihar unit, Anwar formed the NCP in the 1990s along with Pawar and Sangma, opposing Sonia Gandhi taking over as the Congress president on grounds of her foreign origin. The party thereafter allied with the Congress at the national level and also in Maharashtra.