Former Bihar Congress president Anil Sharma and former RJD leader Upendra Prasad joined the BJP in New Delhi on Thursday. They were welcomed into the saffron party's fold along with former Congress leader Gaurav Vallabh.
Anil Sharma, after joining the BJP, said that the Congress has become a communal party. "Mallikarjun Kharge and Sonia Gandhi come in the category of the most communal people. Sonia Gandhi rejected the Ram Mandir invitation. But when there is a programme related to Mother Teresa in Italy, she sends a Congress representative," Sharmna said. "Kharge had said that if Narendra Modi wins again, Sanatan rule will come in the country. There is a battle going on in the nation between two ideologies — one to save Sanatan Dharm and the other to destroy it. Rahul Gandhi follows the latter," Sharma said.
"I do not wear a sacred thread [janeu] over my clothes," Anil Sharma added. Rahul Gandhi's caste has been the centre of a debate over the past decade with him claiming to be a Kashmiri Brahmin. The BJP, on the other hand, has been taking digs at the Congress, calling Rahul Gandhi a "fake Brahmin".
The Gandhi family has received support from various quarters as well with many sharing photos of his father Rajiv Gandhi wearing the sacred thread of Brahmins.
Sharma quit the Congress on March 31, saying that the party's alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav's RJD was a "disastrous partnership". In quitting the Grand Old Party, Sharma became the fourth person in a decade to have resigned from the party after holding the president's post in Bihar.