New Delhi:Former UPA Minister Krishna Tirath on Monday joined the BJP, embarrassing the Congress which lashed out at the ruling party for “importing leaders in desperation” ahead of Delhi assembly election.
Tirath (59), a Congress veteran from Delhi, was welcomed in the party fold by BJP chief Amit Shah with a bouquet of flowers. The former Woman and Child Development Minister in Manmohan Singh-led UPA government was accom-panied by incharge of party affairs in Delhi Prabhat Jha and city unit BJP president Satish Upadhyay.
I met BJP President Amit Shah to serve the people…. I have come with this aim,” Tirath, who was a member of the Delhi Legislative Assembly between 1984–2004 and the North West Delhi MP from 2004 till 2014, said after meeting Shah.
On what would be her role in the BJP, she said the party chief will decide that and added, “My role will be towards public service.”
Congress appeared to be taken aback by Tirath’s move to desert the party. Congress leader Ajay Maken said it showed the “nervousness and desperation” of BJP which is ready to bring any leader in the party fold ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally evoked a “lukewarm” response.
“They have to import leaders from other parties because they have no faith in their own leaders,” he said. Tirath is the third high profile woman to have joined the BJP in the past week ahead of February 7 Delhi assembly elections after former IPS officer Kiran Bedi and ex-AAP leader Shazia Ilmi. BJP welcomed Tirath’s move with party’s national secretary Shrikant Sharma saying, “leaders of other parties are inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda of deve-lopment and want to see that Delhi develops as a world-class city and that is why they are joining BJP.”
Tirath’s joining BJP is viewed as an attempt by the party to woo dalit voters in the national capital. Shah too had started his poll campaign by addressing a dalit rally. Delhi has 12 reserved seats of which a majority were won by the AAP in the last assembly polls in 2013, with BJP winning only two while Congress got one.
She was earlier a member of the Delhi Assembly and a Minister Shiela Dikshit-led Delhi gover-nment having portfolios of Social Welfare, SC & ST and Labo-ur & Employment.(PTI)
