Nearly 500 supporters of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP),led by state vice-president Mehandi Hassan,Minority Cell general secretary Shamshad Ahmed and Minority Cell secretary Naseer Ali,along with others,joined the Congress party today. Union Minister of State for Finance Pawan Kumar Bansal,while welcoming the members,said the Congress has always worked for the uplift of poor and the downtrodden. He added that the party is striving for the welfare of the poor and efforts are being made for the rehabilitation of those living in slums. While condemning both the BSP and BJP,Bansal said they always divide people on the basis of caste and religion and are deep-rooted in corruption. Making reference to the recent incident in Uttar Pradesh where an engineer was murdered by a BSP MLA over the issue of donating money for the birthday celebrations of Chief Minister Mayawati,he said this was a shocking incident. He said Mayawati is ignoring the people from weaker sections of society and is busy collecting donations in the garb of birthday celebrations. B B Bahl,president of the Chandigarh Territorial Congress Committee,said every party worker will be given due respect and his voice will be heard. He further instructed the leaders to form booth committees and said that Congress will win the coming Lok Sabha elections with a thumping majority. Also present on the occasion were Senior Deputy Mayor Harphool Chand Kalyan,DD Jindal,CTCC vice-president,General Secretary Bhupinder Singh Badheri among others.
