Ahead of the declaration of the general election, the exodus of Congress heavyweights to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is tilting the scales in the political spectrum.
Each day, the announcements of prominent Congress leaders hoping on the BJP bandwagon make the headlines. Though this became a trend in other states a long time ago, in Kerala this is a recent phenomenon.
And the new recruits to the BJP from the states are none other than the children of leaders who were the face of India's Grand Old Party in Kerala. While K Karunakaran’s daughter Padmaja is the latest recruit, A K Antony’s son Anil Antony joined the saffron camp in April 2023.
That Padmaja has ditched the Congress to join the BJP just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls assumes added significance.
While the BJP managed to bring in the children of former chief ministers, in other states ex-CMs themselves have joined the BJP.
Among them are even leaders who had served the Congress for five decades and those who have switched camps fearing action by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Directorate of Enforcement (ED).
This wanton betrayal of leaders has cost the Congress not only some top leaders but, in some states, even the political presence.
A file that the BJP did not close
The Adarsh Housing Society scam in Mumbai had rocked the political circles in Maharashtra. The apartment complex was built in South Mumbai’s Colaba for Kargil war heroes and war widows. But when the then Maharashtra CM Ashok Chavan too figured in the list of accused for allegedly allotting flats to Benamis (proxies) who were not eligible to be included in the beneficiary category, the party had to replace him as chief minister in 2010, after a two-year stint at the helm of the state.
Despite not clearing his name from the scandal, the Congress managed to secure his victory from the Nanded Lok Sabha constituency
The party went a step further to throw a protective ring around him by anointing him the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) president.
But in 2019, Chavan was defeated by the BJP candidate in Nanded Prataprao Patil Chikhalikar by a margin of over 40,000 votes. Chavan was then a legislator in Maharashtra Assembly from 2019 to 2022 and was nominated to the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in 2023. But Chavan ended his three-decade-old association with the Congress in February 2024, which started in 1995 as the MPCC general secretary.
Ashok Chavan, who is also the son of former Chief Minister Shankarrao Chavan, was rewarded with a Rajya Sabha seat for his defection.
Responding to Chavan’s BJP foray, Ramesh Chennithala, the AICC general secretary in charge of Maharashtra, said he was “a coward who fled from the CBI and the ED.”
The BJP did not make any effort to close the Adarsh Housing Society scam case purportedly with the aim of briging in Chavan to its fold.
There were also reports that Chavan had informed the Congress high command that he was under enormous pressure to quit the party. Though Chavan claimed he joined the BJP on his own volition, the scam has once again grabbed political attention through his move.
A Rajiv Gandhi acolyte
Captain Amarinder Singh was known as a confidant of the late Rajiv Gandhi, who succeeded his mother as India's prime minister. Singh's initial Congress stint lasted only four years after he quit the party and Lok Sabha membership in protest against Operation Bluestar in 1984. He then associated with the Akali Dal. In 1992, following differences with the Akali Dal, he floated his own party. But in the 1998 Assembly polls, he couldn’t even garner 1,000 votes from his constituency prompting a rethink. He later rejoined the Congress.
Singh got a grand welcome in the Congress party. He was made the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president three times during 1999-2007 and the Chief Minister from 2002-2007.
The Akali Dal-BJP government, which came to power in 2008, expelled him from the Assembly for his alleged involvement in the Amritsar Improvement Trust land transfer case. The Supreme Court annulled that expulsion in 2010. Singh was the Punjab Congress campaign committee chairman while he was facing the allegations.
In 2014 LS polls, he had trounced BJP leader Arun Jaitley in the Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency by a margin of over 90,000 votes.
His clashes with cricket-turned-politician Navjot Singh Siddhu triggered his exit from the Congress. Singh said he wanted to prevent Siddhu’s ascension as the state’s CM at any cost, and hence he was quitting the Congress. But his Punjab Loktantra Congress could not manage to make any impact in the 2022 Assembly polls in which the Congress was also routed. The election which brought the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to power with 92 of the 117 seats also saw the Congress sidelined to just 18 seats. Singh and his daughter joined the BJP. His wife Praneet Kaur was an MP when Singh quit the Congress and his son had also contested in the Congress ticket.
Another stalwart
S M Krishna had donned many hats for the Congress. He was the Karnataka CM, PCC president, Maharashtra governor and a lawmaker in both Houses of Parliament. At the age of 85, Krishna ended his five-decade association with Congress. In 1962, he had made his political foray by contesting as an independent. The election saw him defeating the Congress candidate despite Jawaharlal Nehru's personal campaigns.
The practice of conducting yatras ahead of the elections was introduced by Krishna through his 1999 Panchajanya yatra. From 1999 to 2004 he was the Karnataka Chief Minister. It was during his tenure that Krishna steered the IT industry in Bangalore, earning it the moniker of India's Silicon Valley. The impasse over Cauvery river water dispute with Tamil Nadu, the Telgi scam, and the abduction of superstar Rajkumar by Veerappan happened during his tenure as CM, earning him disrepute. In 2004, when the Congress-JD (S) alliance came to power in Karnataka, the Congress threw a protective ring on him by making him the Maharashtra Governor.
In 2009, he was made a union minister in the second UPA government but quit in 2012. After being in political oblivion for three years, he joined the BJP in 2017. “Age is just a number. The Congress does not want an able leadership, it just wants managers,” Krishna had said then.
But age itself proved to be his Achilles heel in the BJP too, where he did not get any major posts.
A cricketer-turned-politician
No match is over till the last ball is bowled, Kiran Kumar Reddy had famously proclaimed underscoring his opposition to the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh state. The former Ranji cricketer then presided over as the last CM of the undivided Andhra Pradesh, as the Congress made him the CM after the post fell vacant after K Rosiah resigned. Though he was a former Speaker, Reddy was a novice as a minister and was not seen as a popular politician.
After the UPA government showed the green light for the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, Reddy distanced himself from the party leadership. The statehood for Telangana cost the Congress dearly in Andhra. Reddy quit after passing a bill against the bifurcation okayed by the Centre in 2010 March. Telangana achieved statehood in 2010 June. Reddy’s Jay Samakya Andhra Party drew a blank in the next Assembly polls. Reddy then took a break from politics and rejoined the Congress in 2018. Though he expected major organisational responsibilities, the Congress gave a cold shoulder to Reddy, who was not invited to the Udaipur Chintan Sibir in 2022. Though he coveted the PCC president’s post, he had to be contended with just a membership of APCC coordination committee. He quit Congress and joined the BJP saying the wrong policies of the Congress were behind its diminishing electoral clout.
A forgotten case
A foreign national’s death in 2010 at Anjuna beech in Goa caused a furore when it emerged that state Home Minister Ravi Naik’s son Roy Naik was among those who gave narcotic substances to the woman, as per a revelation by the mother of the deceased. The BJP stalled the state Assembly proceedings demanding Naik’s resignation and a CBI probe. Roy was also rumoured to be involved in many narcotic cases. The controversies ended abruptly with the entry of avi Naik’s sons Roy and Ritesh into the saffron fold. The BJP then buried the cases, but it also claimed that the party had not oragnised protests against Roy.
After his sons joined the BJP, Naik, who became the CM twice on a Congress ticket also switched sides and the threat of probes by central agencies receded immediately. He was the CM for 850 days from 1991-93 and six days in 1994. In between, he was deputy CM in Manohar Parrikar ministry but switched back to Congress ahead of the polls in 2002.
He quit Congress after getting elected in the Ponda seat for the sixth time in 2017.
‘ED’-linked defector, again
It was when Congressman Digambar Kamat was the Opposition eader in the Goa Assembly that the ED tightened its noose on him. The charge was that while he was the Goa CM, he accepted a bribe of Rs 1,000 crore from a foreign company for awarding a drinking water project contract. Another charge he faced was receiving a bribe of Rs 35,000 crore for paving way for illegal mining by private companies. When the BJP came to power, a special investigation team was formed to probe the graft charges. When a slew of such charges did the rounds, the Congress protected him by making him a permanent invitee to its supreme body, the Congress Working Committee (CWC). But after the Congress was trounced in 2022 September assembly polls–it won just 11 seats– Kamat switch over to the BJP with eight legislators. Congress MLAs mocked him saying he had pledged before submitting his nomination in a party ticket that he would not betray the party, and that too in a temple and church. Kamat’s retort also made headlines: “I asked God again. To do what is good for you was the Holy reply.” There was no news about the charges from then on.
Intra-party fissures
Vijay Bahuguna was a two-time Lok Sabha MP and wielded immense clout in Congress before he assumed charge as Uttarakhand CM in 2012. After the tussle in Uttarakhand unit of the Congress intensified between factions led by Harish Rawat and Bahuguna, the Congress leadership asked the latter to resign paving the way for Rawat’s ascension to the CM’s post in 2014. This pave way for his exit from the Congress; he joined the BJP with eight legislators. That the BJP was his main critic slamming all the decisions taken by him during his stint as CM did not deter him join the Sangh camp. Bahugna wasn’t active in electoral politics after that, but his son Sourav Bahuguna won twice in a BJP ticket. Congress lost Uttarakhand in 2017 and 2022 polls.
When he joined the BJP, his key demand was a probe into the alleged irregularities during Rawat’s tern as CM. One charge against his successor was that he had bribed Congress MLAs to tide over a vote of confidence in 2016. A CBI case is pending, but Rawat’s defence is that the purported video clipping claimed as evidence was fabricated.
Victory without winning
There is a story of betrayal by a CM that looms over Arunachal Pradesh, the only north eastern state where BJP managed to come to power on its own after Assam. –Pema Khandu, the son of former CM Dorjee Khandu., entrerd the electoral politics by winning unopposed from his father’s constituency and becoming a minister in the Congress government. He was the Tawang DCC president, and was elected unopposed twice. The 2015-16 period saw Arunachal plunge into political crises too often. The state had four CMs during this period. Pema Khandu sat on the CM’s chair only for two months.
In 2016 September, he quit the Congress along with 43 MLAs, and joined the People’s Party of Arunachal (PPA) virtually putting an end to the Congress regime in the border state. After a mere two months of political drama, Khandu and six legislators were suspended from PPA. Khandu then engineered a split in the PPA taking 33 of the previous 43 MLAs who left the Congress with him and became the BJP CM of Arunachal.
From controversies to BJP
N D Tiwari has had many crucial stints as a Congress man, including as external affairs minister in the Rajiv Gandhi government, two-time CM of Uttar Pradesh and CM of Uttarakhand once. He was a union minister on more than one ocassion. When he joined the BJP at the age of 91, he had adorned many key posts with the backing of the Congress. Tiwari joined the BJP when the Congress was facing an major crisis in Uttarakhand just a month ahead of elections.
He was the CM of Uttarakhand from 2002-2007. When the BJP stormed to power in Uttarakhand in 2007, Tiwari got the plum gubernatorial post in Andhra Pradesh. But after sex tapes surfaced from Andhra Pradesh Raj Bhavan, Tiwari had to quit in 2009. Rohit Sekhar had filed a case in 2008 claiming Tiwari fathered him. When the verdict was against him, Tiwari again made headlines by marrying Rohit’s 88-year-old mother. Tiwari had dumped the Congress after enjoying the fruits of power in an association spanning 53 years.
