 "File photo of senior Congress leader Rita Bahuguna Joshi")
"Those who are leaving the party abuse Rahul Gandhi. She tried her luck with BSP and SP earlier and has now joined the BJP. Such leaders are opportunists," Ghulam Nabi Azad, AICC in charge of UP affairs, said on Rita joining the BJP.
"BJP chief Amit Shah has a one point agenda to build up an army of traitors be it the north-eastern region or state governments or political parties," UP Congress chief Raj Babbar said in a reference to senior Congress leaders in Assam (Himanta Biswa Sarma and other lawmakers), Uttarakhand (Vijay Bahuguna, Harak Singh Rawat and other lawmakers) and Arunachal Pradesh (Pema Khandu and other lawmakers), deserting the Congress to join hands with the BJP or an outfit supported by the saffron party over the past two years.
The Congress, which is eyeing to regain the crucial over 10 per cent Brahmin vote bank ahead of the UP assembly polls early next year and has named three-term former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit as its nominee for the top post in the state, said that Rita's exit won't have an impact on the grand old party's prospects.
"Her leaving would have no impact on the Congress in UP just as her brother Vijay Bahuguna's joining the BJP did not affect us in Uttarakhand," Babbar said.
Rita, daughter of former UP chief minister and Congress veteran Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, is a Congress lawmaker from the Lucknow Cantonment assembly seat and has been scouting for an alternative of late.
"She was not confident of returning from her seat and was looking for a safe constituency," said Azad, adding that it was sad that Hemvati Nandan's daughter had joined the BJP.
"It is very sad. Her father fought against communal forces and now she has joined a communal party," Azad said.
Babbar went a step ahead and said Rita, a former professor of history at the University of Allahabad, was only repeating her family history of party hopping.
"There have been four or five such changes in her family," Babbar said.
However, Babbar, who, too, had left the Samajwadi Party to join the Congress in 2009, was quick to add that he did not leave Mulayam Singh Yadav's party on his own but was expelled.
"I am a follower of the socialist movement. I did not quit any party. I was expelled when I pointed out that the SP was moving away from the socialist path," he said.
Defending Rahul, whose style of leadership and recent "khoon ki dalali" jibe aimed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi was cited by Rita as having hurt her, the Congress said that the party vice president was trying to purge the organization of regional satraps who thought they were all powerful.
"Rahul spoke about politicization of the sacrifice made by the soldiers as he is sensitive about the issue. But the social media misinterpreted his remarks," Babbar said, adding, "Rahul is against the culture of patronage in the Congress and is trying to put in place new systems."
