Gujarat: Tribal leader, former Congress MLA Dhiru Bhil joins BJP

Tribal leader and former Congress MLA Dhiru Bhil joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat's Chhota Udepur district on Thursday.

Along with him, several Congress members of district and taluka panchayats also joined the BJP. State BJP chief C R Paatil welcomed Bhil into the party fold by offering him a saffron scarf and a cap at a function at Kesarpura village in Naswadi tehsil. Bhil, a four-time MLA, lost to the BJP's Abhesinh Tadvi from Sankheda Assembly seat in the 2022 election. Paatil was at Kesarpura, Bhil's native village, to inaugurate a model school. Bhil had announced on Wednesday that he was joining the ruling party to ensure development of the region and said he held no grudge against the Congress.

He was advised by his supporters to ''join the flow'' so as to bring development to the tribal-dominated district, he had said.

It was for the first time that his taluka, and more specifically his village, was getting a model school built at a cost of Rs 22 crore, Bhil had said.

He won his first Assembly election as an independent candidate in 1995. He was elected on a Congress ticket in 1998 and 2007, and in 2012 he won from the newly formed Sankheda assembly seat as a Congress candidate.

He was, however, defeated by Tadvi in the 2017 and 2022 elections.

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