NEW DELHI: In a huge setback for Congress, Senior Punjab leader and former finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal joined BJP after quitting the grand old party. Badal wrote a letter to Rahul Gandhi declaring his official resignation from the grand old party over “factionalism”.
In his letter to Gandhi, he wrote, “…far from being acknowledged and appreciated for my efforts, I was vilified in the Punjab Congress for failing to display what can only be described as fiscal recklessness.”
He further wrote, “Suffice it to say, that the manner in which the Congress party has conducted its affairs and taken decisions, specifically with regards to Punjab, has been disheartening, to say the least. The coterie of men entrusted with the authority to dictate Delhi’s writ to the Punjab unit of the Congress are far from sound. Instead of striving to reduce internal disagreement in an already divided house, these men acted to further increase factionalism, and almost as a matter of policy strengthened the very worst elements within the party,” the former Congress leader wrote in the letter.”
He merged with Congress in 2016 after being expelled from Akali Dal in 2010. He formed his own party in Punjab in 2011. In the 2022 elections, he lost the seat to AAP by 63,581 votes which is the highest margin lost by any candidate in the entire Punjab elections of 2022.