Hours after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Harish Chandra Meena joined Congress, Rajasthan BJP leader Kirori Lal Meena said that this will have no impact on tribal votes in Dausa and its nearby regions in the state polls next month.
Elections to the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly will be held on December 7.
Harish Meena, BJP's Dausa MP, joined the Congress in Delhi in the presence of former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot and AICC's state in-charge Avinash Pande on Wednesday.
“There will be no impact. People know who is an opportunist and an opportunist can go anywhere,” Kirori Lal Meena, a Rajya Sabha MP, said.
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Harish Meena, a former IPS officer and ex-Rajasthan DGP, had joined the BJP ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Congress leader and Sapotara MLA Ramesh Meena, said though his party had given a lot to the family of Namonarain Meena, his brother Harish Meena joined the BJP in 2014.
Harish Meena has returned home, said the deputy leader of opposition in the state assembly.
“Namonarain Meena has been a minister and several other members of his family have got so much from the Congress party.
"Now, his brother and Dausa MP has quit the BJP and joined the Congress. He has returned home,” Ramesh Meena said.
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He claimed that a few more BJP rebel leaders would join the Congress.
Harish Meena, who was DGP during Gehlot's tenure as chief minister, and was pitted by the BJP against his brother and senior Congress leader Namonarain Meena in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from the Dausa constituency.
He had won the seat by defeating his nearest rival Kirori Lal Meena, who was then a candidate of the National People's Party, by a margin of 45,404 votes.
His brother Namonarain Meena, then a Union minister, had stood third in the result.
Elections in Rajasthan will be held on December 7. Counting of votes will take place on December 11.
For more assembly election stories, click here.
PTI
