Former Punjab Congress MLA Arvind Khanna joins BJP

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 11

Former Punjab Congress MLA Arvind Khanna and three others from the state on Tuesday joined the BJP in the presence of Union ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Hardeep Singh Puri. 

Khanna, a businessman and two term former MLA, has mostly remained out of the public eye since quitting the Congress a few years ago.

Kanwarveer Singh Tohra, grandson of former Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee president Gurcharan Singh Tohra, Gurdeep Singh Gosha, who was with the Akali Dal, and Dharamveer Sareen, a former counselor from Amritsar, also joined the saffron.  Welcoming them, Shekhawat, who is the BJP’s in-charge for the Punjab assembly polls, said their presence will boost the party which is “set to write a new chapter in the state’s electoral history”.

Shekhawat also accused rival Congress of using the state machinery to foil Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed rally in the state last week. 

It would have been the state’s biggest rally, he claimed. 

Prime Minister Modi had to cut short his visit following a “breach in his security”, triggering a political slugfest.

The BJP has accused the Congress of conspiring to physically harm the Prime Minister.

The Congress, which is in power in Punjab, has rejected the allegations.