Porni Banerjee | ০৭ মে ২০২৪ ১৫ : ৫৭

Actor Shekhar Suman and ex-Congress spokesperson Radhika Khera joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday at the party’s headquarters. Khera quit the grand old Congress party citing disrespect Chhattisgarh’s party unit.

In her resignation letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday, Khera said that she had faced criticism from many Congress leaders just for visiting Ram Temple in Ayodhya, following which she called the party “anti-Ram” and “anti-Hindu” Congress.

“The manner in which I was misbehaved with on the land of Kaushalya Mata 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, the Modi government. Today’s Congress is not Mahatma Gandhi’s Congress, it is anti-Ram, anti-Hindu Congress,” Khera said after joining BJP.

Addressing a press conference, Khera further said, “I am being punished for being a Ram Bhakt. Did my going to the Ram temple hurt the party so much? I was told not to take the name of Ram during the Chhattisgarh polls. I was told I talked of Hindu religion too much,” adding that she was locked in a room for being a devotee of Ram.

Khera further alleged that during Rahul Gandhi"s "Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra", the Chhattisgarh Congress media chairman, Sushil Anand Shukla, offered her and two other female workers alcohol.

She claimed that she informed about the harassment to Sachin Pilot and Jairam Ramesh, but no action was taken.

For Shekhar Suman, this will be the second tenure in politics after he quit Congress in 2012. He earlier contested against former BJP leader in the Patna Sahib Lok Sabha constituency in the 2009 general elections.