Subhash Mahariya, a famous Jat leader from the Sikar seat and a former Union minister in prior BJP administrations, joined the BJP on Friday during a welcome event held by the party after leaving the Congress. After seven years, he joined the saffron party once again.
Along with Mahariya, former IPS officers Gopal Meena, Ramdev Singh Khairwa, former IAS P R Meena, a doctor named Narsi Kirad, and party president C P Joshi as well as leader of the opposition Rajendra Singh Rathore also joined the BJP as main members.
Mahariya claimed in his letter of resignation to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge that the state Congress had not held even one review meeting following the party's defeat on all 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2019 and that the state government had failed to keep its promises to farmers, unemployed youths, and party workers in the Jat belt. As it was impossible for him to stay in the Congress party, he said, “I tendered my resignation.”
At the joining ceremony, Mahariya expressed his gladness to come home in front of prominent BJP officials and supporters. He pledged to devote himself to the party and do all tasks given to him “unconditionally.”
Mahariya represented Sikar as a Lok Sabha member in 1998, 1999, and 2004. He was a minister in the A. B. Vajpayee administration at the time. The BJP did not put him up for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections after he was defeated in the same seat in the 2009 elections. He joined the Congress in 2016 and ran for the Sikar Lok Sabha seat in the 2019 elections, but the BJP's Swami Sumedhanand Sarswati beat him. He served as Kisan Morcha's vice president as well.
