Former BJP legislator joins Congress in poll-bound MP

His brother and sitting MLA Sitasharan Sharma, who was also the MP assembly speaker, has won the seat five times.The brothers have collectively held the seat for seven terms for the BJP since 1990.MP Congress president and former chief minister Kamal Nath inducted Sharma into the Congress.

A former two-term BJP MLA from poll-bound Madhya Pradesh’s Narmadapuram district joined the Congress on Sunday, the second such movement from the saffron party to the rival camp in 8 days. Girija Shankar Sharma (73) joined the Congress here along with a large number of supporters. His younger brother Sitasharan Sharma from Hoshangabad (formerly Itarsi assembly seat) is a five-term BJP legislator. Exactly eight days ago, 10 BJP leaders, including an MLA and an ex-legislator, switched over to the opposition party in the state where assembly elections are due to be held before the year-end. Sharma, who too represented Hoshangabad in the past, had resigned from the BJP nine days ago, triggering speculation that he would be shifting to the Congress camp.

“I left that party as democracy has ended in BJP wherein the culture of flattering has flourished,” Sharma told reporters after taking the primary membership of the Congress along with BJP’s Tikamgarh district panchayat vice president Bhakti Tiwari and many others.

The septuagenarian accused the BJP of pursuing anti-people policies. Though the BJP has all the four assembly seats in Narmadapuram, Sharma asserted that he would reverse the trend in the coming elections.

Hailing from a family dedicated to the BJP for decades, Sharma won from Hoshangabad assembly seat in 2003 and 2008. His brother and sitting MLA Sitasharan Sharma, who was also the MP assembly speaker, has won the seat five times.

The brothers have collectively held the seat for seven terms for the BJP since 1990.

MP Congress president and former chief minister Kamal Nath inducted Sharma into the Congress. This is the second such instance of BJP guns walking over to the rival camp in the past 8 days.

On September 2, BJP leaders, including Kolaras MLA Virendra Raghuvanshi, ex-MLA Bhanwar Singh Shekhawat of Dhar, Chandrabhushan Singh Bundela alias Guddu Raja who is the son of MP Sujan Singh Bundela, and former state home minister Umashankar Gupta’s nephew Ashish Agrawal, alias Golu, joined Congress.

Then Chedilal Pandey and Shivam Pandey of Katni, Arvind Dhakad of Shivpuri, Anshu Raghuvanshi from Guna, Keshav Yadav from Bhind and Mahendra Pratap Singh from Narmadapuram (Hoshangabad) also took membership of the Congress.