Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former MP Ashok Tanwar joined the Congress at Rahul Gandhi's rally in Mahendragarh district in Haryana on Thursday, a setback for the ruling party just two days before the state goes to polls.
Hours before joining the Congress, the former Sirsa MP was campaigning for the BJP candidate in Safidon assembly constituency and exhorting voters to bring it back to power for a third time.
Sources said Tanwar was in touch with a senior Congress leader in Delhi and his return to the party materialised just a day ago.
As Gandhi was winding up his speech at the rally in Bhawaria, an announcement was made from the stage asking the audience to wait for a few minutes.
Soon after, Tanwar (48), who had joined the BJP in January this year, walked onto the stage and it was announced that "aaj unki ghar wapasi ho gayi ha (today, he has returned to the Congress fold)".
Tanwar, a Dalit leader who was considered close to Gandhi and had left the Congress in 2019 following differences with former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, returned to the party hours before the campaigning for the October 5 Haryana assembly polls came to an end at 6 pm.
Shortly before he joined the Congress, he addressed a rally in Safidon in support of BJP candidate Rajkumar Gautam.
"On the last day of poll campaigning, (I) addressed a rally in support of the BJP's Safido (Jind) candidate Rajkumar Gautam and appealed (to people) to help BJP Haryana candidates win by pressing the button against the lotus on October 5.
"The people of Haryana are going to give their blessing for a third time to the BJP government which has ushered in non-stop development," Tanwar said in a post on X in Hindi which was later deleted.
The Dalit leader described his decision to return to the Congress as the "will of God".
"It's all circumstances, destiny and will of the people. Let bygones be bygones," Tanwar told PTI on phone.
"I am joining the Congress exactly five years after I left it. That was the will of God then, today also it is the will of God... Sometimes, there is not much in your hands," he added.
At the rally in Bhawaria, Tanwar shook hands with Gandhi and greeted Hooda, who welcomed him into the party fold and patted his back.
Congress leaders KC Venugopal, Bajrang Punia, Rao Dan Singh and political scientist Yogendra Yadav were also present on stage.
During the campaigning, the BJP targeted the Congress over its treatment of Tanwar, a former Haryana Congress president, referring to his differences with Hooda and an incident in which he sustained injuries during a scuffle allegedly between his and the former chief minister's supporters in Delhi.
Tanwar joined the Aam Aadmi Party in April 2022.
He quit the party in January this year, expressing his displeasure over its decision to join hands with the Congress for the Lok Sabha elections.
Before joining the AAP, he was with the Trinamool Congress briefly.
After joining the BJP, Tanwar had unsuccessfully contested against Congress leader Kumari Selja, a prominent Dalit face of her party, from Sirsa Lok Sabha constituency in May.
The BJP had picked him over its sitting Sirsa MP Sunita Duggal.
