In a big blow to the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), several of its party leaders on Sunday joined the Congress in New Delhi.
Prominent INLD leaders like Ashok Arora, Jai Prakash, Subhash Goyal, A Pradeep Chaudhary, late Jaswinder Singh Sandhu's son Gaganjit Sandhu joined the Congress in the presence of Ghulam Nabi Azad, Haryana Congress president Kumari Selja and Bhupinder Singh Hooda at AICC headquarters.
"Several party leaders from other parties are joining us, they are joining us because the regional parties are disappearing one by one and the pressure which BJP is applying from the Centre and state governments forcing them to come to Congress," Azad said at a press conference here to welcome the new joiners.
Azad asserted that the regional party leaders joining the Congress as they want to challenge BJP's ideology.
"Congress is the only party which has for 100 years and more survived the onslaught of these parties, these leaders joined us because they wanted to defeat the BJP and came to the conclusion that only Congress would be able to help them in this mission," he added.
Speaking about the preparations for the Assembly elections due in Haryana, Azad said, "Kumari Selja and Bhupinder Hooda have begun touring the constituencies ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections. They did a tour of Gurgaon and Faridabad constituencies today and it will continue in the days to come."
( With inputs from ANI )