News India Tariq Anwar joins Congress nearly a month after quitting NCP over Sharad Pawar's 'defence' of PM Modi on Rafale deal

Tariq Anwar joins Congress nearly a month after quitting NCP over Sharad Pawar's 'defence' of PM Modi on Rafale deal

Anwar resigned from the Lok Sabha and his party in September, over his disagreement with NCP chief's Sharad Pawar’s stand on the Rafale aircraft deal with France.

Tariq Anwar along with Congress President Rahul Gandhi. Image Source : ANITariq Anwar along with Congress President Rahul Gandhi.

Former NCP leader Tariq Anwar joined the Congress on Saturday after a meeting with party president Rahul Gandhi.

Anwar along with his supporters met Gandhi at his Tughlaq Lane residence and was welcomed into the party fold, the sources said. The former MP from Katihar Lok Sabha constituency would make a formal announcement of his joining the Congress party later in the day, party sources told PTI.

Anwar resigned from the Lok Sabha and his party in September, over his disagreement with NCP chief's Sharad Pawar’s stand on the Rafale aircraft deal with France.

Anwar, one of the founding members of the NCP during his address just after his announcement to quit the party had said said that he was 'hurt' by Pawar's statements that PM Modi's intentions on the Rafale fighter jet aircraft deal were not wrong.

ALSO READ | Day after Sharad Pawar backed PM Modi over Rafale deal, top NCP leader Tariq Anwar quits party in protest

Pawar, however, had clarified he was misquoted in the reports and he had given no such clean chit to Modi.

A former president of Congress's Bihar unit, Anwar formed the NCP in the 1990s along with Pawar and the late P A Sangma, opposing Sonia Gandhi taking over as AICC president on grounds of her foreign origin.

The party thereafter allied with the Congress at the national level and also in Maharashtra.

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