Kuldeep Bishnoi, an Indian National Congress dissident leader, has resigned from Vidhan Sabha and will join the BJP on Thursday, August 4, ending his six-year relationship with the party he left in 2007 and rejoined in 2016, news agency PTI reported.
Bishnoi, 53, presented his resignation to Speaker Gian Chand Gupta in Chandigarh, who accepted it. This implies a byelection for Bishnoi's existing seat in Hisar district, Adampur.
Bhavya Bishnoi, the MLA's son who ran unsuccessfully in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Hisar, has also left the Congress.
Kuldeep Bishnoi had met with prominent BJP leaders in recent weeks, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah and party chairman J P Nadda, showered adulation on them, and given clear signs that he was leaving the Congress.
"I am joining BJP as an ordinary worker and I hope that all my supporters, be they from Haryana, Rajasthan or parts of Punjab, will be given full respect," Bishnoi was quoted by PTI in its report.
Bishnoi formally resigned from Congress after "considering his own sentiments as well as those of supporters."
Bishnoi immediately challenged Congress politician Bhupinder Singh Hooda to run from Adampur after resigning.
"Hooda had challenged me that Kuldeep Bishnoi should first resign (before joining the BJP). I challenge him, he had been a chief minister for 10 years, let him contest from Adampur against me or my son," he said.
In response to Bishnoi's statement, Haryana Congress chief Udai Bhan said, "The man who lives abroad for six months and remains inaccessible is talking of throwing a challenge."
"On one hand, Bishnoi is saying he is keen that his son contest from Adampur and on the other, he is throwing a challenge for Hooda ji. The Congress party's ordinary worker is enough to defeat him," Bhan further addded.
The Congress removed Bishnoi from all party posts shortly after he cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha elections in June. The four-time MLA and two-time MP had been fuming since the party brushed him away for the position of Haryana unit president during a restructuring earlier this year.
It will be the younger son of former Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal's second departure from the Congress, nearly six years after he rejoined the party.
"I feel the Congress is no longer what it used to be during Indira ji and Rajiv Gandhi ji's time. The Congress has deviated from its ideology. It has been reduced to a party of 'chatukars' (sycophants). Many of those who are running the party are those who either have not fought elections or haven't won for decades," Bishnoi stated.
"All decisions taken by them are proving wrong across the entire country," he said.
(With Inputs From PTI)