Yashodhara stays, 4 more in BJP’s stable

Beg and Kumar, who defected from the Congress, were welcomed by Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani and party president M. Venkaiah Naidu.

Sengupta’s defection was announced by Naidu in his absence. Naidu said Sengupta had met him in Kolkata and had expressed his desire to join the party. ‘‘I have decided to accept him,’’ he added. Sengupta was last in news when he attended a dinner at Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s residence last year. It left the CPI(M) red-faced.

Krishna Kumar said he was joining the BJP after serving the Congress for 23 years as BJP was ‘‘the party of the present and the future’’. He said petty group politics was ‘‘decimating’’ the Congress and its ‘‘failure’’ to enforce discipline has turned it into a ‘‘laughing stock’’. The people of Kerala want a third alternative as they ‘‘are disillusioned with both the Congress and CPI(M)-led fronts’’, he added.

Beg, a minister of state in the Morarji Desai Government, had joined the Congress seeking greener pastures. He returned to the BJP after being cold-shouldered by the Congress. A BJP MLA, Yashodhara, was at loggerheads with the party leadership in Madhya Pradesh. She resigned as a state secretary to express her unhappiness with the way the district unit was functioning. This was followed by media reports that she was planning to join the Congress.

Yashodhara appeared at the BJP headquarters today. She told reporters after a 15-minute talk with Naidu: ‘‘I am a worker of the BJP. I will remain with the BJP and will work for the BJP.’’ While on the face of it, Yashodhara may be unhappy over local party affairs, her real problem is the absence of adequate political space for herself. An Assembly seat falls too short of her political aspirations.

The latest from among the Scindias to join politics, she kept the Rajmata company during her last days. In the BJP, she is overshadowed by her sister Vasundhara Raje, chief ministerial candidate of the party in Rajasthan. In the Congress, it is her nephew, Jyotiraditya Scindia, who calls the shots in Gwalior.

Having entered the scene late, she does not have her mother around to push her career as in the case of Vasundhara. Nor does she have in present party chief M. Venkaiah Naidu a patron like Kushabhau Thakre, who would promote a Scindia outright. Therefore, she may hold on to the BJP, but her disenchantment may persist.