Chandigarh: Senior Congress leader and former Punjab minister Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi resigned from the party on Tuesday and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, alleging that he was deeply hurt by the bickering and in-fighting within the state unit. Sodhi joined the BJP in the presence of party chief J P Nadda in Delhi and is likely to contest the assembly election from Ferozepore on BJP ticket.
67-year-old Sodhi, who is the MLA from Guruharsahai, was the sports minister in the state government led by Amarinder Singh, who resigned from the post of chief minister in September and left the Congress in November. His shift to the BJP comes on a day when Amarinder Singh is holding a rally in Patiala ahead of the assembly polls.
In his letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Sodhi noted that the bickering and in-fighting within the Punjab Congress is harming the party as well as causing serious problems for the state and the government. ‘Agonised with the current state of affairs, I put my resignation from all posts and primary membership of the Congress party with immediate effect’, Sodhi said.
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Sodhi has been active in politics since 1973 and is considered one of the tallest leaders of the state. He was elected MLA in 2002 and won successive polls in 2007, 2012 and 2017. In 2018, he was given the post of chief whip of the Congress. The leader’s move comes amid Captain Amarinder’s assertion that several Congress leaders were in touch with him and would jump ship ahead of the 2022 polls. Captain Amarinder’s Punjab Lok Congress has tied up with BJP for the upcoming elections. Reportedly, Sodhi had quit the Congress party to join BJP in consultation with Amarinder.
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