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BJP leader kicks off huge political storm: ‘RSS sent me to Congress as part of strategy’
Ramkishore Shukla lost the assembly election from Mhow on a Congress ticket and returned to the BJP weeks after.
A BJP leader in Madhya Pradesh has kicked off a political storm by claiming that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) sent him to Congress ahead of state elections as part of a strategy.
BJP leader Ramkishore Shukla, aka Bhaiya Ji, unsuccessfully contested the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections on a Congress ticket and returned to the saffron fold a few days back.
Shukla's poll plunge made the fight triangular in the Mhow assembly constituency but the BJP turncoat came third by securing 29,144 votes. BJP's Usha Babu Singh Thakur won the assembly seat with 1,02,989 votes while Congress rebel Antar Singh Darbar, contesting as an independent, received 68,597 votes.
Madhya Pradesh Assembly Election Results 2023: Full list of the winners constituency wise and seat wise
Darbar also joined the BJP last month.
“I switched to Congress just before the assembly elections, contested Mhow on a Congress ticket and lost. All this was done as part of a poll strategy and I did so under the directions of a senior RSS leader in October last year,” Shukla told media persons on Wednesday, as quoted by The Times of India.
“The reason for this was the weak position of BJP candidate Usha Thakur. There was large-scale opposition from within the party. Former Congress MLA Anant Singh Darbar was fighting as an independent, and looking at all these equations, I got ready to sacrifice myself,” he claimed.
When asked to name the RSS leader, Shukla said it was Abhishek Udeniya, Indore Vibhag Sangathan Mantri of VHP, who sent him to Congress.
BJP MLA Usha Babu Singh Thakur has rubbished the claims as “baseless” and said, “Before leaving the party, he met me. He was very sad and wept too. I told him that I tried my best and that I had talked to the state party chief and party general secretary.”
"He told me that he has been working for the party for the last 20 years but the party did not take any care of him, that's why he is leaving," she told PTI.
