Former Congress leader Radhika Khera and actor Shekhar Suman joined the Bhartiya Janata Party at the BJP headquarters in the national capital on Tuesday amid the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
They were inducted into the BJP in the presence of senior leader and party national general secretary Vinod Tawde.
Khera, formerly the Congress National Media Coordinator, expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and JP Nadda for welcoming her. She had quit the Congress on Sunday, accusing it of being “anti-Ram and anti-Hindu”.
Recounting an incident, Khera said she was disrespected and manhandled after visiting the Ayodhya temple. “The way I was treated for being a devotee of Ram, for having darshan of Ram Lalla, I would not have been able to reach here if I had not got the protection of the BJP government,” she said.
Khera also criticized the Congress leadership, including Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, and Sachin Pilot, for their silence regarding the mistreatment she faced after visiting the Ram temple.
“After I visited the Ram temple, some party leaders misbehaved with me and when I asked for justice, be it Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, I always asked for justice and those who are accused are still holding positions in the party. Rahul Gandhi keeps talking about women empowerment, but when an injustice happened to a woman in his own party, he is silent,” Khera said.
Meanwhile, actor Shekhar Suman said, ‘Till yesterday I did not know that I would be sitting here today because many things in life happen knowingly or unknowingly. I have come here with a very positive thinking and I would like to thank God that he ordered me to come here,” while addressing a Press conference in Delhi.
Back in 2009, Suman ran for the Lok Sabha seat from Patna Sahib under the Congress banner, but faced defeat against Bollywood actor and BJP candidate Shatrughan Sinha, securing third place in the election.
Shekhar Suman, recently starred in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s directorial web series ‘Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar’ which has become a much talked about series on Netflix.
Khera had resigned from the Congress earlier this month, claiming the party began to “hate her” after her Ayodhya visit. She alleged being locked in a room and manhandled at the Chhattisgarh Congress office post the temple visit on April 25.
“I always heard that Congress is anti-Ram, anti-Sanatan, and anti-Hindu but I never believed it. Mahatma Gandhi used to start every meeting with ‘Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram’. I got exposed to this reality when I went to the Ram temple with my grandmother and after returning from there, I put a ‘Jai Shri Ram’ flag on the door of my house and after that, the Congress party started hating me. Whenever I posted photos or videos, I was scolded and asked why did I visit Ayodhya when elections were underway,” Khera said.
(Inputs from ANI)
